LIBRARY 

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University  of  California. 

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WILLIAM  SHAKSPERE 
and  ROBERT  GREENE 

THE  EVIDENCE 
WILLIAM  H.  CHAPMAN 


©rtbuttf  PttbltBlytttg  (fl0. 

OAKLAND.     CAL. 


COPYRIGHTED  BY 

^ViLLiAM  H.  Chapman 

SANTA  MONICA,  CAL. 
FEBRUARY  26,  1912 


235381 


PREFACE.. 

[HE  design  of  this  work  is  to 
give  some  account  of  the  con- 
spicuous events  and  of  some  of 
the  personages  connected  with 
the  literary  history  of  England  in  that 
wonderful  Renaissance  which  took  place 
in  the  Elizabethan  age.  All  that  the  writer 
has  attempted  is  a  concise  narrative  of 
some  of  the  facts,  grouping  them  together 
in  a  compact  form,  with  such  reflections 
as  seemed  to  him  to  he  just  and  appropri- 
ate. To  secure  this  end  he  has  labored  to 
strip  from  Shakspere^s  biography  the 
manufactured  traditions  which  date  from 
a  considerable  period  after  Shakspere's 
death.  Where  all  is  conjecture  let  the 
reader  do  his  own  guessing  and  strive 
for  the  ahaiement  of  that  netv  Freak 
called  Esthetic  Criticism  with  which  some 
of  our  critics  and  commentators  desig- 
nate their  own  absurdities. 

The  writer  has  given  unusual  promi- 
nence to  several  distinguished  personages 
amongst  Shakspere's  contemporaries,  no- 
tably Robert  Greene,  William  Kemp  and 


Ben  Jonson.  The  tvork  is  sketchy  in 
execution  because  the  materials  do  not 
exist  for  more  than  an  outline  figure. 

The  readers  familiar  tvith  the  old  Eng- 
lish dramatic  poets  do  not  believe  in  an 
exclusive  authorship^  or  uniform  uwrk- 
manship,  of  the  greatest  of  the  Eliza- 
bethan English  tvorks.  While  they  set  up 
no  claimant  for  the  writings  so  commonly 
credited  to  William  Shakspere  of  Strat- 
ford-on-Avon,  they  believe,  nevertheless, 
that  the  Stratfordian  canon  is  open  to 
demurrer. 

Conspicuous  among  modern  and  recent 
writers  on  the  subject  of  Robert  Greene, 
who  show  the  courage  of  their  convictions 
by  their  valiant  strokes  in  defense  of  that 
poet\s  reputation,  are  Professor  J.  M. 
Brotvn  of  New  TiCaland,  Dr.  A.  B.  Gross- 
art,  and  Professor  Storojenko.  The  cita- 
tions borrotved  from  their  works  attest 
the  writer's  obligation  to  them,  and  are 
sufficiently  indicated  in  the  text. 

WILLIAM  H.  CHAPMAN 

Santa  Monica,  California. 


WILLIAM  SHAKSPERE  AND 
ROBERT  GREENE 

THE  EVIDENCE 


This  book  was  written  primarily  for 
private  satisfaction,  the  author  having  no 
desire  for  approbation,  and  to  disclose 
merely  the  true  William  Shakspere  of 
Stratf ord-on-Avon ;  to  find  him  as  a  man ; 
to  feel  his  personal  presence ;  to  know  him 
as  he  was  known  by  his  neighbors  as  land- 
owner, money  lender,  captain  of  amuse- 
ments, actor,  play-broker  and  litigant. 
From  dusty  records  that  do  not  awaken 
a  deific  impulse  may  be  read  the  true 
story  of  his  life,  but,  before  directing  the 
readers'  attention  to  the  documentary  evi- 
dence, which  can  be  entirely  depended 
upon  in  regard  to  himself,  his  family, 
neighbors,    fellow-actors    and   associates, 


2  WILLIAM  SHAKSPERE 

we  desire  to  cut  out  the  worthless  conjec- 
tures which  are  contained  in  most,  if  not 
all,  of  the  recent  works  on  the  subject  of 
Shakespeare.  Circumstances,  however 
slight,  may  give  rise  to  idle  conjectures, 
but  their  worthlessness  may  be  best  dis- 
cerned by  setting  up  against  them  reason- 
able ones.  To  repeat  apocryphal  anec- 
dotes and  manufactured  traditions  that 
are  not  reasonable  inferences  from  con- 
current events  is  to  dissipate  mental  en- 
ergy; antiquity  per  se  adds  nothing  to 
confirmation  or  probability.  In  that  di- 
gest of  biography,  so  often  quoted,  George 
Stevens  tells  his  readers  in  less  than  fifty 
words  all  he  knew  with  any  degree  of  cer- 
tainty concerning  Shakspere,  with  the 
exception  of  his  conjectures  as  to  the  au- 
thorship of  the  poems  and  plays.  This 
great  Sbaksperean  commentator  indulges 
in  no  aesthetic  dreams  or  whimsical  con- 
jectures which  taint  the  credibility  of  his 
successors  by  their  statement  of  them  as 
proven  facts. 

Of  all  kinds  of  literature,  biography 


AND   ROBERT   GREENE  3 

extends  the  most  generous  hospitality. 
Its  subjects  live  an  after  life  in  affiliation 
with  the  readers  without  regard  to  condi- 
tion. In  seeking  to  renew  the  enthusiasm 
of  our  youth  for  this  species  of  w^riting 
we  visit  the  public  library  and  find  many 
changes  in  biographical  history,  such  as 
the  elimination  of  spurious  tradition  and 
fanciful  conjecture.  For  instance,  instead 
of  the  traditional  life  of  Washington, 
there  is  a  life  of  the  true  Washington; 
and,  instead  of  a  caricatured  life  of 
Cromwell,  there  is  a  record  of  the  duly 
attested  facts  of  the  many-sided  and  won- 
drous Cromw^ell.  With  what  astonish- 
ment we  survey  the  huge  issue  of  books 
on  Shakspere  which  stand  conspicuous  on 
the  shelves!  There  are  more  than  ten 
thousand  books  and  pamphlets— many  of 
them  of  the  memoir  order— almost  every 
one  of  which  has  a  biographical  preface ; 
but  we  find  that  most,  if  not  all,  the  bio- 
graphers of  Shakspere  still  lead  the 
reader  into  the  shadow  of  chaotic  conjec- 
ture   and    might-have-been,     and     that 


4  WILLIAM   SHAKSPERE 

Shaksperean  literature  still  lacks  a  book 
on  the  personal  life  of  William  Sliaks- 
pere  that  shall  be  to  most,  if  not  all  oth- 
ers, a  pruning  hook  cutting  out  the  rever- 
ies and  guess  work  which  unfortunately 
have  seduced  the  historian  and  misled  the 
reader.  We  hold  in  our  hand  one  of  the 
more  recent  of  these  books  of  fictitious 
biography,  transmissive  '^fraud  of  the 
imagination"  which  authenticates  noth- 
ing! 

As  co-readers,  we  will  now  focus  our 
attention  and  thoughts  intently  upon  the 
celebrated  letter  written  by  the  dying 
hand  of  Robert  Greene,  and  addressed  to 
three  brother  poets  to  whom  he  adminis- 
ters a  gentle  reproof  on  account  of  their 
by-gone  and  present  faults,  of  which, 
play-writing  was  most  to  be  shunned.  This 
remarkable  letter  reveals  Robert  Greene 
as  the  most  tragical  figure  of  his  time— a 
sad  witness  of  his  ultimate  penitence  and 
absolute  confession,  a  character  of  pa- 
thetic sincerity,  weirdness  and  charnel- 
like  gloom  that  chills  the  soul.     This  let- 


AND  ROBERT  GREENE  5 

ter,  so  often  referred  to^  and  seemingly  so 
little  understood,  is  one  of  the  most  extra- 
ordinary pieces  of  writing  in  our  literary 
annals.  It  has  all  the  credibility  that  a 
dying  statemxcnt  can  give,  but  it  also  evi- 
dences the  fact  that  Robert  Greene  had 
previously  drawn  the  fire  of  the  improvis- 
ing actors  ''who  wrou2:ht  the  disfigure- 
ment of  the  poet's  work."  There  is  one 
in  particular  at  whom  he  hurls  a  dart  and 
hits  the  mark. 

''Yes,  trust  them  not;  for  there  is  an 
"upstart  crow,  beautified  with  our  (po- 
"et's)  feathers,  that,  with  his  Tyger's 
"heart  wrapt  in  a  Player's  hide,  supposes 
"he  is  as  well  able  to  bombast  out  a 
"blanke  verse  as  the  best  of  you;  and  be- 
"ing  an  absolute  'Johannes  Factotum,'  is 
"in  his  own  conceit,  the  onely  Shake- 
"  scene  in  a  countrie." 

This  sorrow-stricken  man  wrote  these 
words  of  censure  with  the  utmost  sincer- 
ity. Earlier  biographers  made  no  attempt 
to  read  Shakspere  into  these  lines  of  re- 
proof, but  those  only  of  later  times  regard 


6  WILLIAM  SHAKSPERE 

the  allusion  invaluable  as  being  the  first 
literary  notice  of  Sliakspere,  and  find 
pleasure  in  reading  into  Sliakspere 's  life 
the  fact  of  his  having  been  satirized  in 
1592  under  the  name  '^  Shake-scene/'  used 
by  Greene  contumeliously. 

The  letter  is  contained  in  a  little  work 
entitled  ^^  Greene's  Groats  Worth  of 
Wit,"  '^ Bought  with  a  Million  of  Repent- 
ance,  originally  published  in  1592,  having 
been  entered  at  Stationers  Hall  on  the 
20th  of  September  in  that  year."  ''To 
those  Gentlemen  his  Quondam  acquaint- 
ance, that  spend  their  wits  in  making 
Plaies." 

''With  thee  (Marlowe)  will  I  first  be- 
"gin,  thou  famous  gracer  of  tragedians, 
"that  Greene,  who  hath  said  with  thee, 
"like  the  foole  in  his  heart,  there  is  no 
"God,  should  now^  give  glorie  unto  His 
"greatnesse;  for  penetrating  is  His 
"power.  His  hand  lies  heavy  upon  me.  He 
"hath  spoken  mito  me  with  a  voice  of 
"thunder  and  I  have  felt  He  is  a  God  that 
"can  punish  enemies.    Why  should   thy 


AND  ROBERT  GREENE  7 

'' excellent  wit,  His  gift,  be  so  Minded  that 
^^tlion  shouldst  give  no  glory  to  the 
''giver?"  .... 

''With  thee  I  joyne  young  Juvenall, 
"  (Nash)  that  byting  satyrist  that  lastlie 
"with  mee  together  writ  a  comedie. 
"Sweete  boy,  might  I  advise  thee,  be  ad- 
"  vised,  and  get  not  many  enimies  by  bit- 
"ter  words  ....  Blame  not  schol- 
"lers  vexed  with  sharp  lines,  if  they  re- 
" prove  thy  too  much  libertie  of  reproof  e." 

"And  thou  (Peele)  no  less  deserving 
"than  the  other  two,  in  some  things  rarer, 
"in  nothing  inferiour;  driven  (as  my- 
"selfe)  to  extreame  shifts;  a  little  have 
"I  to  say  to  thee ;  and  were  it  not  an  idol- 
"atrous  oath,  I  would  swear  by  sweet  S. 
"George  thou  are  unworthie  better  hap, 
"sith  thou  depend  est  on  so  meane  a  stay. 
"  (theatre)  Base  minded  m.en  all  three  of 
"you,  if  by  my  miserie  ye  be  not  warned; 
"for  unto  none  of  you,  like  m.e,  sought 
"those  burrs  to  cleave;  those  puppits,  I 
"m.eane,  that  speake  from  our  mouths, 
"tl^ose  anticks  garnisht  in  our  colours.  Is 


\  WILLIAM  SHAKSPERE 

'it  not  strange  that  I,  to  whom  they  all 
'have  been  beholding,  is  it  not  like  that 
'you  to  whom  they  all  have  beene  behoM- 
'  ing,  shall,  were  ye  in  that  case  that  I  am 
'now,  be  both  at  once  of  them  forsaken? 
'Yes,  trust  them  not;  for  there  is  an  up- 
'  start  crow,  beautified  with  our  feathers, 
'that,  with  his  Tyger's  heart  wrapt  in  a 
'Player's  hide,  supposes  he  is  as  well  able 
'to  bombast  out  a  blanke  verse  as  the  best 
'of  you;  and  being  an  absolute  'Johannes 
'Factotum,'  is  in  his  own  conceit  the 
'  onely  Shake-scene  in  a  countrie. "... 
"But  now  returne  I  againe  to  you 
'three,  knowing  my  miserie  is  to  you  no 
'news ;  and  let  me  heartily  entreate  you  to 
'be  warned  by  my  harmes  ....  For 
'it  is  a  pittie  men  of  such  rare  wits 
'should  be  subject  to  the  pleasures  of 
such  rude  groomes." 

Those  biographers  and  critics  who  have 
written  concerning  Shakspere  and  Greene 
misapprehensively  compound  an  inte- 
grate letter  and  pamphlet.  It  should  be 
made  clear  that  Greene's  letter  to  his  fel- 


AND  ROBERT  GREENE  9 

low  poets  is  not  an  integral  part  of 
'^Groats  Worth  of  Wit,"  though  ap- 
pended towards  the  end  of  this  pamphlet. 
The  letter  is  strikingly  personal  and  im- 
pressive, not  a  continuance  of  a  pamphlet 
describing  the  folly  of  youth,  but  a  mere 
appendage  not  properly  constituting  a 
portion  of  it.  It  was  the  classical  com- 
mentator, Thomas  Tyrwhitt  (1730-85), 
we  believe,  who  first  made  current  the 
groundless  opinion  that  purports  to  iden- 
tify Shakspere  as  the  one  pointed  at,  but 
most,  if  not  all,  recent  biographers  and 
commentators  state  as  a  ^^ proven  fact" 
that  Robert  Greene  was  the  first  to  bail 
Shakspere  out  of  obscurity  by  the  ^'rep- 
rehensive  reference"  to  an  ^^  upstart 
crow. ' ' 

The  effect  of  conjectural  reading  is  to 
raise  a  tempest  of  depreciation  by  which 
Shakspere 's  biographers  and  commenta- 
tors have  succeeded  in  handing  down  to 
posterity  Greene's  reputation  as  a  pre- 
posterous combination  of  infamy  and 
envy,  harping  with  fiendish  delight  on  the 


10  WILLIAM  SHAKSPERE 

irregularities  and  defects  of  Robert 
Greene's  private  life,  which  were  not 
even  shadowed  in  his  writings.  The  writ- 
ings of  Greene  '^ whose  pen  was  pure"  are 
exceptionally  clean.  Why  then  this  un- 
merited abuse  so  malignant  in  disposition 
and  passion?  We  answer  that  it  is  be- 
cause the  biographers  of  Sliakspere  have 
been  seduced  from  truth  by  a  vagrant 
conjecture  into  the  belief  that  William 
Shakspere  was  the  object  and  recipient 
of  Greene's  censure.  It  is  apparent  that 
the  statement  which  affirms  this  is  false, 
and  we  shall  endeavor  to  show  that  Rob- 
ert Greene's  detractors  are  on  the  wrong 
trail. 


II 


There  now  arises  the  crucial  enquiry 
concerning  the  charge  that  William 
Shakspere  was  thus  lampooned  in  1592 
by  Robert  Greene  in  his  celebrated  ad- 
dress ^^To  those  Gentlemen  of  his  own 
^ ^fellowship  that  spend  their  wits  making 
' '  plaies  "— inf erentially,  Marlowe,  Nash 
and  Peele.  The  exigency  of  the  case  de- 
mands, in  the  opinion  of  Shakspere 's 
modern  biographers,  the  appropriation 
of  Greene's  reproachful  reference  to 
Shakspere,  (though  no  name  is  men- 
tioned) yet  the  actor  referred  to  by 
Greene  the  children  in  London  streets 
well  knew  and  acclaimed;  and  every  stu- 
dent of  Elizabethan  literature,  history 
and  bibliography,  should  know  that  the 
reference  is  identifiable  with  William 
Kemp,  the  celebrated  comic  actor,  jig- 
dancer,  and  jester,  who  was,  in  his  own 
conceit,  the  ^^only  Shake-scene  (dance- 
'^ scene)    in   a  country,"   ^^Shake-scene" 


12  WILLIAM  SHAKSPERE 

and  (dance-scene)  being  interchangeable 
componnds  in  the  old  meaning;  but  the 
votaries  of  Shakspere,  posing  as  his  biog- 
raphers, in  the  urgency  of  their  desire  to 
remove  doubts  which  had  existed  respect- 
ing the  beginning  of  Sliakspere's  early 
literary  productivity  as  play-maker,  or  as 
an  elaborator  of  the  works  of  other  men, 
prior  to  the  year  1592,  crave  some  nota- 
tion of  literary  activity  in  the  young  man 
who  went  up  from  Stratford  to  London 
in  1587  (probably). 

As  the  immortal  plays  were  coming  out 
anonymously  and  surreptitiously,  there  is 
a  very  strong  desire  to  appropriate  or  em- 
bezzle ^^the  only  Shake-scene"  reference, 
for,  in  the  similarity  and  sound  of  the 
compound  word  ^^Shake-scene"  in  one  of 
its  elements  there  is  that  which  fits  it  to 
receive  a  Shakespearean  connotation,  thus 
catching  the  popular  fancy  of  Shakes- 
pere's  biographers  and  academic  com- 
mentators. The  compound  word  ^^Shake- 
scene"  is  made  by  the  joining  of  two 
words  generic  in  both  its  elements,  and,  in 


AND  ROBERT  GREENE  13 

combination  having  generic  characteris- 
tics pertaining  to  a  large  or  comprehen- 
sive class— that  is  to  say,  tlie  words 
^^sliake"  and  ^^ scene"  bear  a  sense  in 
which  the)^  are  descriptive  of  all  the  vari- 
ous things  to  which  they  are  applied,  and 
of  all  other  things  that  share  their  com- 
mon properties.  The  fanciful  biographers 
of  William  Shakspere  rely  on  these  words 
of  reproof  and  censure  as  being  the  initial 
notice  of  his  worth  and  work  which  was 
to  lift  him  from  his  place  of  obscurity  in 
the  year  1592.  The  meaning  of  Greene's 
words  in  the  idiom  of  the  times,  as  in 
their  contextural  and  natural  sense,  yield 
nothing  which  is  confirmatory  of  such 
contention;  for  ^^ dance"  is  connoted  un- 
der the  term  ^^ shake,"  answering  to  the 
first  element  in  ^'Shake-scene,"  which  in 
the  old  meaning  meant  ''dance,"  generic 
for  quick  action ;^  and  "scene"  meant 
"stage"  instead  of  "scenery"  as  in  the 
modern  meaning,  for  the  theatres  were 
then  in  a  state  of  absolute  nudity— in 
other    words,    "Shake-scene"    meant    a 


14  WILLIAM  SHAKSPERE 

dancing  performance  upon  the  stage.  In 
the  plain  unobtrusive  language  of  our 
day,  as  well  as  in  Elizabethan  English, 
the  word  ^' shake  "—the  first  element  in 
^' Shake-scene"  is  interchangeable  with 
^^ dance,"  and,  Avhen  given  a  specialized 
meaning  with  a  view  to  theatrical  matters 
in  the  year  1592,  with  Kemp  and  Shaks- 
pere  claimants  for  Greene's  reproof,  who 
could  doubt  that  the  name  which  was  so 
loudly  acclaimed  is  identifiable  with  the 
spectacular  luminary  of  the  times,  Wil- 
liam Kemp?  In  setting  up  the  comic  ac- 
tor and  jig-dancer  as  claimant  for 
Greene's  objurgation,  we  promise  the 
reader  attestative  satisfaction  by  estab- 
lishing the  truth  of  our  contention  b}^ 
particular  passages  in  ^^the  address" 
when  explained  by  the  context  as  tran- 
scriptive  of  Kemp's  actual  history. 

We  now  direct  the  attention  of  the 
reader  specifically  to  the  arrogant  and 
boastful  comedian,  William  Kemp.  This 
man,  according  to  Robert  Greene's  view, 
was    the    personification    of  everything 


AND  ROBERT  GREENE  15 

detestable  in  the  actor— whose  profession 
he  despised.  We  think  the  biographers 
and  commentators  have  mistaken  the 
spectacularity  of  William  Kemp  for  the 
rising  sun  of  William  Shakspere.  In  the 
closing  years  of  the  sixteenth,  and  the 
early  years  of  the  seventeenth,  century 
there  li\^ed  in  London  the  most  spectacu- 
lar comic  actor  and  clown  of  his  day,  the 
greatest  ^^Shake-scene"  or  (dance-scene) 
of  his  generation,  William  Kemp,  the 
worthy  successor  of  Dick  Tarlton.  He 
had  a  continental  reputation  in  1589. 
This  year  also  Nash  dedicated  to  Kemp 
one  of  his  attacks  upon  Martin  Marpre- 
late  entitled  '^An  Almond  for  a  Parrot." 
^^  There  is  ample  contemporary  evidence 
'^that  Kemp  was  the  greatest  comic  actor 
^^of  his  time  in  England,  and  his  noto- 
'^riety  as  a  morris-dancer  was  so  great 
"that  his  journejdngs  were  called  dances. 
^'He  was  the  court  favorite  famous  for 
^^his  improvisions,  and  loved  by  the  pub- 
^4ic,"  but  hated  by  academic  play- writers 
and  ridiculed  by  ballad-makers.     Kemp, 


16  WILLIAM  SHAKSPERE 

in  giving  his  first  pamphlet  '^The  Nine 
^^Days  Wonder"  to  tlie  press  in  1599, 
turned  upon  liis  enemies  and  in  retalia- 
tion called  them  ^^ Shake-rags/'  which  he 
used  derisively  and  as  contumeliously  as 
Greene  had  used  ^^Shake-scene."  The 
use  of  the  word  ^^ Shake-rags"  by  Kemp 
in  his  first  and  only  published  work  is 
prima-facie  evidence,  that  he  also  made 
use  of  the  same  term,  orally  and  in  his 
usual  acrimonious  manner,  either  against 
Greene,  or  those  of  his  fellowship.  The 
first  element  in  the  compound  words 
^^Shake-scene"  and  ^^ Shake-rags"  is  gov- 
erned by  the  same  general  law  of  move- 
ment or  rhythmic  action  exemplified  in 
dancing  and  rhymery.  In  1640  Richard 
Brown  in  his  ^^ Antipodes"  refers  to  the 
practice  of  jesters,  in  the  days  of  Tarlton 
and  Kemp,  of  introducing  their  own  wit 
into  poet's  plays,  Kemp,  writing  in  1600, 
asserts  that  he  spent  his  life  in  mad  jigs 
and  merry  jests,  although  he  was  en- 
trusted with  many  leading  parts  in  farce 
or  broad  comedy.    His  dancing  of  jigs  at 


AND  ROBERT  GREENE  17 

the  close  of  a  play  gave  Mm  his  chief  pop- 
ularity (^^ Camden  Society  Papers"). 
'The  jigs  were  performed  to  musical  ac- 
'companiment  and  included  the  singing 
'of  comic  words.  One  or  two  actors  at 
'times  supported  Kemp  in  his  entertain- 
'ment,  dancing  and  singing  with  him. 
'Some  examples  of  the  music  to  which 
'Kemp  danced  are  preserved  in  a  manu- 
'  script  collection  of  John  Dowland  now 
'in  the  library  of  Cambridge  University. 
'  The  words  were,  doubtless,  often  impro- 
'  vised  at  the  moment,  but,  on  occasions, 
'they  were  written  out  and  published. 
'The  Stationers  Eegister  contains  licen- 
'ses  for  the  publication  of  at  least  four 
'sets  of  words  for  the  jigs  in  which 
'Kemp  was  the  chief  performer." 

According  to  Henslowe's  Diary,  Wil- 
liam Kemp  was  on  June  15,  1592,  a  mem- 
ber of  the  company  of  the  Lord  Strange 
players  under  Henslowe  and  Alleyn, 
playing  a  principal  comic  part  in  the 
"Knack  to  Know  a  Knave,"  and  intro- 
ducing into  it  what  is  called  on  the  title 


18  WILLIAM  SHAKSPERE 

page  his  '^ Applauded  Merriments,"  a 
technical  term  for  a  piece  of  theatrical 
buffoonerj^  In  1593  Nash  warned  Gabriel 
Harvey  ^4est  William  Kemp  should  make 
merriment  of  him."  ^^As  early  as  1586, 
^Kemp  was  a  member  of  a  company  of 
^  great  importance  which  had  arrived  at 
'Elsinore  where  the  king  held  court.  He 
^remained  two  months  in  Denmark,  and 
^received  a  larger  amount  of  board 
^m.oney  than  his  fellow  actors.  In  a  let- 
^ter  of  Sir  Phillip  Sidney,  dated  Utrecht 
^  March  24,  1586,  he  says,  M  sent  you  a 
'letter  by  Will  (Kemp),  my  Lord  Leices- 
'ter's  jesting  player.'  It  was  after  his 
'return  from  these  foreign  expeditions 
'that  we  find  Kemp  uniting  his  exertions 
'with  those  of  Alleyn  at  the  Rose  and 
'Fortune  theatres,  as  Prince  Henry's 
'servants.  During  this  whole  period 
'from  his  return  in  1586  from  Denmark, 
'to  the  year  1598,  he  did  not  stay  unin- 
'terruptedly  at  the  theatres  of  the  Bur- 
'bages.  From  February  19,  to  June  22, 
'1592,  a  part  of  Lord  Leicester's  com- 


ii 


AND  ROBERT  GREENE  19 

pany  played  under  Henslowe  and  Al- 
leyn.  In  1602  Kemp  was  again  in  Lon- 
'^don,  acting  under  Henslowe  and  AUeyn 
^^as  one  of  the  Earl  of  Worcester's  men. 
^^We  gather  from  Henslowe 's  Diary  that 
^^on  March  10th,  he  borrowed  in  ready 
^^  money  twenty  shillings. 

^'Kemp  was  a  very  popular  performer 
^'as  early  as  1589.  We  shall  see  hereafter 
^Hhat  he,  following  the  example  of  Tarl- 
^^ton,  was  in  the  habit  of  extemporizing 
^^and  introducing  matter  of  his  own  that 
''has  not  come  down  to  us.  'Let  those 
"that  play  your  clowns  speak  no  more 
"than  is  set  down  for  them'  (Hamlet, 
"Act.  Ill,  Scene  II.).  These  words  w^ere 
"aimed  at  Kemp,  or  one  of  his  school, 
"and  it  was  about  this  date,  according  to 
"  Henslowe 's  Diary,  that  Kemp  went  over 
"from  the  Lord  Chamberlain  to  the  Lord 
"Nottingham  players.  The  most  import- 
"ant  duty  of  the  clown  was  not  to  appear 
"in  the  play  itself,  but  to  sing  and  dance 
"his  jig  at  the  end  of  it,  even  after  a  trag- 
"edy,  in  order  to  soften  the  painful  in> 


20  WILLIAM  SHAKSPERE 

pression— (Camden  Society  Papers)  — 
Kemp's  jig  of  ^Tlie  Kitchen  Stuff 
Woman'  was  a  screaming  farce  of  rude 
verses,  some  spoken,  others  sung;  of 
good  and  bad  witticism ;  of  extravagant 
acting  and  dancing.  In  the  art  of  comic 
dancing  Kemp  was  immoderately  loved 
and  admired.  He  paid  professional  vis- 
its to  all  the  German  and  Italian  courts, 
and  was  even  summoned  to  dance  his 
morris-dance  before  the  Emperor  Ru- 
dolph himself  at  Augsburg. 
^^Kemp  combined  shrewdness  with  his 
rough  humor.  With  a  view  to  extend- 
ing his  reputation  and  his  profits,  he  an- 
nounced in  1599,  his  intention  of  danc- 
ing a  morris-dance  from  London  to 
Norwich;  but  to  his  annoyance,  every 
inaccurate  report  of  his  gambols  was 
hawked  about  in  publication  at  the  time 
by  book-sellers  or  ballad-makers,  like 
Kemp's  farewell  to  the  tune  of  ^ Kerry 
Merry  Buff. '  In  order  to  check  the  cir- 
culation of  falsehood,  Kemp  offered,  he 
tells  us,  his  first  pamphlet  to  the  press 


AND  ROBERT  GREENE  21 

'  (though  at  the  time  he  was  thought  to 
^have  had  a  hand  in  writing  the  Anti- 
^Martnist  plays  and  pamphlets  —  five 
^pieces  erroneously  attributed  to  his 
^pen).  The  only  copy  known  is  in  the 
'Bodelean  Library.  The  title  ran 
'  ^Kemp's  Nine  Days  Wonder/  the  won- 
^der  referred  to  being  performed  in  a 
^  dance  from  London  to  Norwich  then 
^written  by  himself  to  satisfy  his  friends. 
'  A  woodcut  on  the  title  page  shows  Kemp 
4n  elaborate  costume  with  bells  about 
'his  knees  playing  to  the  accompaniment 
'of  a  drum  and  tabor,  which  a  man  at  his 
'side  is  playing.  This  pamphlet  was  en- 
'tered  in  the  Stationers  Book  April  22, 
'1600.  The  dedicatory  salutation  to 
'Anna  Pritton,"  one  of  her  Majesty's 
maids  of  honor,  shows  us  how  arrogant 
and  conceited  he  must  have  been. 

"Kemp  started  at  seven  o'clock  in  the 
"morning  on  the  first  Monday  in  Lent, 
"the  starting  point  being  in  front  of  the 
"Lord  Mayor's  house,  and  half  London 
"was  astir  to   see  the   beginning   of  the 


u 


a 


22  WILLIAM  SHAKSPERE 

^^  great  exploit.  His  suite  consisted  of  his 
'^taborer,  Thomas  Sly;  his  servant,  Wil- 
^4iam  Bee;  and  his  overseer  or  umpire, 
'^George  Sprat,  who  Avas  to  see  that  every- 
^^  thing  was  performed  according  to  prom- 
'4se.  According  to  custom,  he  put  out  a 
^^sum  of  money  before  his  departure  on 
^^  condition  of  receiving  thrice  the  amount 
on  his  safe  return.  His  own  fatigues 
caused  him  many  delays  and  he  did  not 
arrive  in  Norwich  until  twenty-three 
days  after  his  departure.  He  spent  only 
nine  days  in  actual  dancing  on  the  road. 
Kemp  himself  on  this  occasion  contrib- 
uted nothing  to  the  music  except  the 
^' sound  of  the  bells,  which  were  attached 
^Ho  his  gaiters.  In  Norwich  thousands 
^^  waited  to  receive  him  in  the  open  mar- 
^^ket-place  with  an  official  concert. 
'^Kemp,  as  guest  of  the  town,  was  enter- 
'Hained  at  its  expense  and  received  hand- 
^^some  presents  from  the  Mayor  who 
'^  arranged  a  triumphal  entry  for  him. 
'^The  freedom,  of  the  Merchant  Adven- 
^Hures  Company  was  also  conferred  upon 


a 


AND  ROBERT  GREENE  23 

'^liim,  thereby  assurins;  liim  a  share  in 
'^the  yearly  income  to  the  amount  of  forty 
^^  shillings— a  pension  for  life.  The  very 
^'buskins  in  which  he  had  performed  his 
'^  dance  were  nailed  to  the  wall  in  the  Nor- 
^^wich  Guild  Hall  and  preserved  in  per- 
^^petual  memory  of  the  exploit,  which  was 
"long  remembered  in  popular  literature. 
^^In  an  epilogue  Kemp  announced  that  he 
'Svas  shortly  to  set  forward  as  merrily  as 
^^I  may;  whither,  I  myself  know  not," 
and  begged  ballad  makers  to  abstain  from 
disseminating  lying  statements  about 
him.  Kemp's  humble  request  to  the  im- 
pudent generation  of  ballad-makers,  as 
he  terms  them,  reads  in  part,  "My  nota- 
'^ble  Shake-rags,  the  effect  of  my  suit  is 
^^  discovered  in  the  title  of  my  supplica- 
^^tion,  but  for  your  better  understanding 
^^for  that  I  know  you  to  be  a  sort  of  wit- 
'4ess  bettle-heads  that  can  understand 
^^  nothing  but  that  is  knocked  into  your 
^^ scalp;  so  farewell  and  crosse  me  no 
'^more  with  thy  rabble  of  bold  rhymes 
^^lest  at  my  return  I  set  a  crosse  on   thy 


24  WILLIAM  SHAKSPERE 

^^  forehead  tliat  all  men  may  know  that 
^'for  a  fool."  It  seems  certain  that  Kemp 
kept  his  word  in  exhibiting  his  dancing 
powers  on  the  continent.  In  Week's 
^^ Avers"  (1688)  mention  is  made  of 
Kemp's  skipping  into  France.  A  ballad 
entitled  ^^An  Excellent  New  Medley" 
(dated  about  1600)  refers  to  his  return 
from  Rome.  In  the  Elizabethan  play 
^^Jack  Drum's  Entertainment"  (1616), 
however,  there  is  introduced  a  song  to 
which  Kemp's  morris  dance  is  performed. 
Hey  wood,  writing  at  this  period,  in  his 
'^Apology  for  Actors"  (1612),  says  Wil- 
liam Kemp  was  a  comic  actor  of  high  rep- 
utation, as  well  in  the  favor  of  Her  Maj- 
esty as  in  the  opinion  of  the  general  audi- 
ence. There  is  also  a  tribute  from  the 
j)en  of  Richard  Rathway  (1618).  Ben 
Jonson,  William  Rowly  and  John  Mar- 
ston  also  make  mention  of  him. 

Pretty  much  all  that  relates  to  the  gam- 
bols of  sportive  Kemp  in  the  foregoing 
pages  is  a  mere  transcription  from  the 
'^Camden  Society  Papers." 


AND  ROBERT  GREENE  25 

Our  prime  object  is  to  establish  Kemp's 
eligibility  as  claimant  for  Greene's  cen- 
sure, before  alluded  to.  We  are  content 
to  advance  the  claim  of  another  if  found 
more  decisive.  We  would  elect  to  name 
Robert  Wilson,  senior,  an  old  enemy, 
doubtless,  of  Robert  Greene,  if  we  did  not 
think  that  Kemp  has  the  better  claim  to 
that  distinction.  According  to  Collier, 
Wilson  was  not  only  an  excellent  per- 
former, but  also  a  talented  dramatist, 
especially  renowned  for  his  ready  re- 
partee. Some  writers  affirm  that  the  au- 
thors of  the  dramas  "Faive  Emm"  and 
^^  Martin  Marsixtus"  were  one  and  the 
same  person,  and  that  this  person  was 
Robert  Wilson,  senior,  author  of  ^^  Three 
^ ^Ladies  of  London"  and  ^' Three  Lords 
^^and  Ladies  of  London,"  the  first  pub- 
lished in  1584,  and  the  other  in  1590. 
^^Faire  Emm"  and  ^^ Martin  Marsixtus" 
having  been  posthumously  printed, 
Greene  was  severe  on  the  author  of  the 
former  for  his  blamphemous  introduction 
of  quotations  from  the  Bible  into  his  love 


26  WILLIAM  SHAKSPERE 

passages.  ^^We  know  that  the  author  at- 
^^ tacked  Greene's  own  works  in  return 
'^and  called  them  lascivious."  He  had 
not  read  the  works,  but,  then,  an  anony- 
mous writer  may  not  very  scrupulously 
confine  himself  to  the  truth.  ^^Loth  I  was 
^Ho  display  myself  to  the  world  but  for 
''that  I  hope  to  dance  under  a  mask  and 
''bluster  out  like  the  wind,  which,  though 
' '  every  man  heareth  yet  none  can  in  sight 
"descrie."  "I  must  answer  in  print  what 
"they  have  offered  on  the  stage"  are  the 
words  of  Greene. 

Robert  Wilson  may  be  advanced  as 
claimant  for  Greene's  reproof  by  some 
persons  who  are  of  the  opinion  that  "up- 
start crow"  was  both  actor  and  play- 
wright. Supposition  says  Kemp  also 
wrote  pamphlets  and  plays,  although  at 
this  time  he  had  not  given  his  first  and 
only  work  to  the  press.  It  matters  little 
at  whom  he  aimed,  Kemp  or  Wilson,  so 
long  as  Shakespere  was  not  the  object  of 
the  aimer.  In  the  Parish  Register  of  St. 
Giles,    Cripplegate,    we    read,    "Buried, 


AND  ROBERT  GREENE  27 

^^  Robert  Wilson,  yeoman,  a  player,  20 
^^Nov.,  1600.'' 

These  facts  and  concurring  events  in 
the  life  of  AVilliam  Kemp  convince  us  that 
Shakspere  was  not,  and  Kemp  very  prob- 
ably was,  the  person  at  whom  Greene  lev- 
eled his  satire  by  bearing  witness  to  his 
(Kemp's)  extemporizing  power  and  his 
haughty  and  insolent  demeanor  in  intro- 
ducing improvisions  and  interpolations 
of  his  '^own  wit  into  poet's  plays." 

From  the  foregoing,  it  is  evident  that, 
at  the  time  the  letter  was  written,  Wil- 
liam Kemp  enjoyed  an  unequaled  and 
wide  spread  notoriety  and  transient  fame, 
extending  not  only  throughout  England, 
but  into  foreign  countries  as  well. 

And  further,  by  reason  of  his  great 
prominence,  in  a  calling  which  Greene 
loathed,  and  despised,  he  was  brought 
easily  within  the  range  of  the  latter 's  con- 
temptuous designation,  of  '^upstart 
crow." 


Ill 

We  have  now  reached  the  crucial  mat- 
ter of  the  address  which,  according  to  the 
speculative  opinion  of  many  of  Shaks- 
pere's  biographers,  contains  all  the  words 
and  sentences  which  they  hope,  when 
racked,  may  be  made  to  yield  support  to 
their  tramp  conjecture  that  Robert 
Greene  was  the  first  to  discover  Shaks- 
pere  as  a  writer  of  plays,  or  the  amendor 
of  the  works  of  other  poets.  The  identifi- 
able words,  so  called,  are  contained  in  the 
following  sentences:  ^^Yes,  trust  them 
^'not;  for  there  is  an  upstart  crow,  beau- 
'Hified  with  our  feathers,  that,  with  his 
^^Tyger's  heart  wrapt  in  a  Player's  hide." 

''Upstart  Crow"  in  Elizabethan  Eng- 
lish m.eant  in  general,  one  who  assumed  a 
lofty  or  arrogant  tone,  a  bragging,  boast- 
ful, swaggerer  suddenly  raised  to  promi- 
nence and  power,  as  was  Kemp  after  the 
death  of  Richard  Tarlton  (1589).  In  an 
epistle  prefixed   to  Greene's   ''Arcadia" 


AND  ROBERT  GREENE  29 

(1587),  Thomas  Nash  speaks  of  actors 
^^As  a  company  of  taifaty  fools  with  their 
^^ feathers;"  and  ''The  players  decked 
''with  poets'  feathers  like  Aesop's 
"Crow"  (R.  B.)  ;  and  again,  "That  with 
"his  Tyger's  heart  wrapt  in  a  Player's 
"hide."  Tiger  in  the  plain  language  of 
the  day  stood  for  bully,  a  noisy,  insolent 
man,  who  habitually  sought  to  overbear 
by  clamors,  or  by  threats.  These  charac- 
teristics are  identifiable  with  Kemp;  but 
the  biographers  of  Shakspere  are  content 
to  conjecture  that  Robert  Greene's  par- 
ody on  the  line  "Oh  Tyger's  heart  wrapt 
"in  a  woman's  hide"  is  not  only  a  con- 
tumelious reference  to  actor,  William 
Shakspere,  but  also  a  declaration  of  his 
authorial  integrity  by  their  assignment  of 
"Henry  VI.  Part  III,"  which  was  in  ac- 
tion at  the  "Rose,"  when  Greene's  cele- 
brated address  was  written. 

There  is  prima- facie  evidence  that 
Greene  authored  the  line,  which  he 
semi-parodied  in  the  address,  which  is 
found  in  two  places.     It  appears  in   its 


30  WILLIAM  SHAKSIPERE 

initial  form  ^^Oli  Tyger's  heart  wrapt  in 
"a  serpent's  hide"  in  the  play  called, 
'^The  Tragedy  of  Richard,  Duke  of 
^^York,"  and  ^^The  Death  of  Good  King 
^^  Henry  the  Sixth/'  and  later  with 
'^  woman"  substituted  for  ^^  serpent," 
again,  it  is  found  in  the  third  part  of 
•'Henry  VI.",  founded  on  the  true  trag- 
edy, which  was  acted  by  Lord  Pembroke's 
company,  of  which,  as  Nash  tells  us, 
Greene  was  chief  agent,  and  for  which  he 
wrote  more  than  four  other  plays. 
''Henry  VI.  Part  III"  is  generally  ad- 
mitted to  be  the  work  of  Greene,  Mar- 
lowe and  perhaps  Peele.  Furthermore, 
the  catchwords  in  the  lines  parodied  be- 
tray their  author,  which  is  a  confirmatory 
fact.  To  borrow  a  citation  from  the 
pages  of  Dr.  A.  Grosart,  "Every  one  who 
"knows  his  Greene  knows  that  over  and 
"over  again  he  returns  on  anything  of 
"his  that  caught  on,  sometimes  abridging 
"and  som^etimes  expanding;"  and  in 
semi-parodying  his  own  lines,  wrapt  ''Ty- 
"ger's  heart"  in  several  kinds  of  hides. 


AND  ROBERT  GREENE  31 

It  was  William  Kemp,  the  comic  actor 
and  dancer,  not  Shakspere,  whom  Greene 
wanted  to  hit.  He  did  not  consider  as  an 
author  at  all  the  ^'upstart  crow"  with  his 
'^Tyger's  heart  wrapt  in  a  player's  hide," 
who  bombasted  orally  his  own  improvis- 
ions  and  interpolations  out  in  blank 
verse. 

In  their  great  desire  to  discover  Shaks- 
pere  as  the  author,  the  words  ^^  bombast 
^^out  in  blank  verse"  are  seized  upon  by 
Shakspere's  commentators  with  evident 
greediness.  But  these  words  yield  noth- 
ing in  support  of  author-craft,  for  bom- 
bast or  bombastry,  in  the  idiom  of  the 
time,  stood  for  high  sounding  words 
which  might  have  proceeded  from  the 
mouth  of  a  buffoon,  clown,  jester,  monte- 
bank  or  actor,  whose  profession  was  to 
amuse  spectators  b}^  low  antics  and  tricks, 
and  whose  improvisions  and  extemporiz- 
ings  were  destitute  of  rhyme,  but  pos- 
sessed of  a  musical  rhythm  called  ^^ blank 
^S^erse."  The  words  ^^ blank  verse"  were 
doubtless  intended  for  the  ear  of  Mar- 


32  WILLIAM  SHAKSPERE 

lowe,  the  great  innovator,  who  was  thus 
reminded  that  the  notorious  jig-dancer 
and  clown,  William  Kemp,  declaimed  his 
own  improvisions  and  interpolations  in 
the  ^^  swelling  bombast  of  a  bragging 
^^ blank- verse,"  as  Nash  called  it,  and  was 
an  absolute  ^^  Johannes  Factotum  in  his 
''own  conceit"— that  is,  a  person  em- 
ployed to  do  many  things.  Who  could  do 
more  ''in  his  own  conceit"  than  Kemp, 
who  spent  his  life  in  mad  jigs,  as  he  says'? 
Who  but  Kemp,  the  chief  actor  in  the  low 
comedy  scenes,  who  angered  the  academic 
play-writers  by  introducing  "his  own  wit 
into  their  plays  and  make  a  merriment  of 
"them?" 

Greene's  address  to  his  fellow  crafts- 
men does  not  convey  plagiary,  or  a  fur- 
bishable,  imputation,  nor  give  color  to, 
nor  the  slightest  circumstance  for,  the 
conjecture  that  Shakspere's  authorial 
career  had  been  begun  as  the  amender  of 
other  poet's  plays  anterior  to  the  putative 
authorship  of  "Venus  and  Adonis."  Hal- 
liwell-Phillips,    the    most    indefatigable 


AND  ROBERT  GREENE  33 

and  reliable  member  of  the  Congress  of 
Speculative  Biographers,  says  that  not 
one  such  play  has  been  found  revised,  or 
amended,  by  Shakspere  in  his  early  ca- 
reer. Still  in  their  extremity,  Shaks- 
pere's  commentators  give  hospitality  to 
stupid  conjectures  that  are  not  reason- 
able inferences  from  concurrent  facts, 
and  construe  Greene's  censure  of 
Kemp,  (inferentially)  as  the  first  lit- 
erary notice  of  Shakspere.  It  shows 
an  irrepressible  desire  without  proof  to 
confer  authorship  upon  Shakspere  one 
hundred  and  fifty  years  after  his  death. 
The  Shakspere  votaries  cannot  point  to  a 
single  word,  or  sentence,  in  this  celebrated 
address  of  Robert  Greene  which  connects 
the  contumelious  name  ^^Shake-scene" 
(dance-scene)  with  the  characteristics  of 
either  the  true,  or  the  traditional,  Shaks- 
pere. 

The  biographers  of  Shakspere  never 
grow  weary  of  charging  Robert  Greene 
with  professional  jealousy  and  envy.  The 
charge  has  no  argumentative  value,  even 


U  WILLIAM  SHAKSPERE 

if  granting  Shakspere's  early  productiv- 
ity as  a  play-maker,  or  the  amender  of 
the  works  of  other  men,  for  Greene's  ac- 
tivities ran  in  other  lines;  play-making 
was  of  minor  importance,  a  sort  of  by- 
production  of  his  resourceful  and  versa- 
tile pen.  The  biographers  of  Shakspere 
are  unfortunate  in  having  taken  on  this 
impression,  because  there  is  prima-facie 
evidence  that  Greene  had  forsworn  writ- 
ing for  the  stage  a  considerable  time  be- 
fore the  letter  was  written;  thus  he  fol- 
lowed his  friend  Lodge,  who  in  1589 
'^vows  to  write  no  more  of  that  whence 
'^ shame  doth  grow." 

The  biographers  and  commentators, 
agreeing  in  their  asperities,  charge  Rob- 
ert Greene  with  that  worst  of  passions, 
envy,  basing  it  conjecturally  on  the  as- 
sumption of  Shakspere's  proficiency  as 
a  drama-maker,  notwithstanding  the  sin- 
cere and  earnest  words  contained  in  his 
most  pathetic  letter,  addressed  to  three 
friends,  in  which  he  counsels  them  to  give 
up  play  writing,  which  he  regarded  as  de- 


AND  ROBERT  GREENE  35 

grading,  placing  their  very  necessities  in 
the  power  of  grasping  shareholding  ac- 
tors, and  rendering  it  no  longer  a  fit 
occupation  for  gentlemen.  They  fail  to 
see  the  dying  should  be  granted  immu- 
nity from  this  ignoble  and  base  passion. 
Our  own  rule  of  law  admits  as  good  evi- 
dence the  testimony  of  a  man  who  be- 
lieves himself  to  be  dying,  and  so  the 
letter  states,  ^^  desirous  that  you  should 
^4ive  though  himself  be  dying." 

Robert  Greene's  charge  against  ^^up- 
^^ start  crow"  stands  unshaken.  Henry 
Chettle,  the  hack  writer,  and  self  admit- 
ted transcriber  of  the  letter,  does  not  re- 
tract Greene's  statement.  He  denies 
nothing  on  behalf  of  an  ^^ upstart  crow" 
(Kemp)  ;  for  the  author  of  ^^Kind  Hearts 
Dreams"  does  not  identify  '^Shake- 
^Sscene"  (dance-scene)  with  Shakspere, 
or  Shakespeare,  who  was  not  one  of  those 
who  took  offense.  It  is  expressly  stated 
that  there  were  two  of  the  three  fellow 
dramatists,  addressed  by  Greene  (Mar- 
lowe, Nash  and  Peele).    Still  we  are  told 


?? 


36  WILLIAM  SHAKSPERE 

by  Shakespearean  writers  that  the  dying 
genius  was  pained  at  witnessing  tlie  pro- 
ficiency of  another  in  the  very  activity 
(play-making),  which  he  had  come  to  re- 
gard as  congruous  with  strolling  vaga- 
bondism. He  enjoined  his  friends  to  seek 
better  masters  ^^for  it  is  a  pittie  men  of 
''such  rare  wit  should  be  subject  to  the 
''pleasure  of  such  rude  groomes, 
"painted  monsters,  apes,  burrs,  peasants, 
"puppets,"  not  play-makers,  but  actors, 
who  had  been  beholden  to  him  and  his  fel- 
low craftsmen  whom  he  addressed. 

There  is  another  aspect  in  which  the 
charge  of  professional  jealousy  presents 
itself  to  the  mind  of  the  reader;  those 
who  covet  that  which  another  possesses, 
or  envies  success,  popularity  or  fortune. 
To  charge  Greene  with  envy  is  most  un- 
charitable by  reason  of  his  versatility. 
Now  what  was  there  in  the  possession  of 
William  Shakspere  in  1592  that  could 
have  awakened  in  the  mind  of  Robert 
Greene  so  base  a  passion  as  envy.  The 
name  Shakspere  had  no  commercial  value 


AND  ROBERT  GREENE  37 

in  1592,  for  Shakspere  of  the  stage  is  de- 
scribed many    years    after   this   date    as 
merely  a  ^^man  player"  and  "a.  deserving 
^'m.an,"    Note  this  admission  by  Dr.  In- 
gleby:     ^^4ssuredly   no   one    during   the 
'  century  had  any  suspicion  that  the  gen- 
ius of  Shakespeare  was  unique."    ^'His 
immediate  contemporaries  expressed  no 
^  great  admiration  for  either  him,  or  his 
^ works."    There  is  not  a  particle  of  evi- 
dence to  show  that   Robert   Greene   was 
envious  of  any  writer  of  his  time ;  nor  had 
he  cause  to  be;  but  the  way  his  contem- 
poraries and  successors  robbed  and  plun- 
dered him  proves  the  reverse  to  be  true. 

^^Nay,  more,  the  men  that  so  eclipst  his 

fame, 
^^Purloynde  his  plumes;  can  they  deny 

the  same?" 

The  fact  is,  Shakspere  passed  through 
and  out  of  life  without  having  attained 
the  distinction,  or  celebrity,  won  by 
Greene  in  his  brief  literary  career  of  but 
nine  short  years.  The  more  truthful  of 
Shakspere 's  biographers  concede  that  the 


38  WILLIAM  SHAKSPERE 

subject  of  their  memoirs  was  not,  in  his 
day,  highly  regarded,  and  that  his  obscur- 
ity in  1592  is  obvious.  There  was  not  the 
least  danger  of  the  author  of  '' Hamlet" 
^^ driving  to  penury"  the  dean  of  English 
novelists,  Robert  Greene,  who  was  su- 
preme in  prose  romance,  a  species  of  lit- 
erature, which  appealed  to  the  better 
class  of  the  reading  public.  Rival-hating 
envy !  Robert  Greene  cannot  be  brought 
within  the  scope  of  such  a  charge,  for  in 
1592,  he  was  not  striving  to  obtain  the 
same  object  which  play  writers  were  pur- 
suing. 

The  fame  of  Robert  Greene  during  his 
lifetime  eclipsed  that  of  his  contempor- 
aries. ^^He  was  in  fact  the  popular  au- 
"thoT  of  the  day.  His  contemporaries 
^^  applauded  the  facility  with  which  he 
^ turned  his  talents  to  account."  ^^In  a 
^^ night  and  a  day,"  says  Nash,  ^^ would  he 
'^have  yearked  up  a  pamphlet  as  well  as 
'4n  seven  years,  and  glad  was  that  prin- 
^Her  that  might  be  so  blest  to  pay  him 
^^dear  for  the   very   dregs  of  Ms  wit," 


AND  ROBERT  GREENE  39 

Even  Ben  Jonson,  '^the  greatest  man  of 
^^the  last  age,"  according  to  Dryden,  had 
no  such  assurance  in  his  day,  if  we  ma}" 
judge  from  his  own  account  of  his  liter- 
ary life,  which  shows  that  he  had  to  strug- 
gle for  a  subsistence,  as  no  printer  was 
found  glad,  or  felt  himself  blest,  to  pay 
him  dear  for   the   cream,  much   less  the 
very  ^^ dregs  of  his  wit."    He  told  Drum- 
mond  that  the  half  of  his  comedies  were 
not  in  print,  and  that  he  had  cleared  but 
200  pounds  by  all  his  labor  for  the  public 
theatre.    It  has  been  said  by  one :  ^^  In  the 
breadth    of    his    dramatic    quality,    his 
range  over  every  kind  of  poetic  excel- 
lence, Jonson  was  excelled  by    Shakes- 
peare alone."    (p.  437,  ^'A  Short  His- 
tory of  the  English  People.")     When 
not  subsidized  by  the  court  he  was  driven 
by  want  to  write  for  the  London  theatres ; 
he  lived  in  a  hovel  in  an  alley,  where   he 
took    service  with    the    notorious    play 
broker.    To  such  as  he,  reference  is  made 
by  Henslow,    who   in  his    diary   records 
the     grinding   toil   and    the   starvation 


a 


40  WILLIAM  SHAKSPERE 


u 


wages  of.  Ms    hungry    and    drudging 
'^bondsmen,"    who   w^ere   struggling   for 
the  meanest  necessities  of  life.     This  Ti- 
tan of  a  giant  brood  of  playwrights,  in 
the  days  of  his  declension  wrote  mendi- 
cant epistles  for  bread,  and,  doubtless,  in 
his  extremity  recalled  Robert  Greene,  the 
admonisher  of  three  brother  poets  ^^that 
^  spend    their    wits    in    making   plaies." 
'Base  minded  men,  all  three  of  you!  if  by 
^my  miseries  ye  be  not  warned,  for  unto 
^none  of  you,  like  me,  sought  those  burrs 
^to  cleave,  those  puppits,  I  mean    that 
'speak  from    our    m^ouths    those   antics 
'  garnisht  in  our  colors.    Is  it  not  strange 
'that  I,  to  whom  they  all  have  been  be- 
'  holding,  shall,  were  ye  in  that  case  that 
'I  am  now,  be  both  at  once  of  them  for- 
'saken?     .     .     .     .     O  that  I  might  in- 
'treate  your  rare  wits  to  be  employed  in 
'm.ore  profitable   courses,    and  let  those 
'apes  imitate  your  past  excellence,    and 
'never  more  acquaint  them  with  your  ad- 
' mired  inventions." 
It  was  one  of  this  breed  of  puppets,  we 


AND  ROBERT  GREENE  41 

are  told,  who  awakened  incarnate  envy  in 
the  breast  of  Robert  Greene,  and  engen- 
dered rivalship  against  William  Shaks- 
pere,  whose  votaries,  in  their  dreams  of 
fancy,  see  him  revising  the  dramatic 
writings  of  Robert  Greene,  the  most  re- 
sonrcefnl,  versatile,  tireless  and  prolific 
of  literary  men.  He  was  a  writer  of 
greatest  discernment  from  the  viewpoint 
of  the  people  of  his  time,  '^for  he  pos- 
'^sessed  the  ability  to  write  in  any  vein 
"that  would  sell."  He  only,  of  all  the 
writers  of  his  time,  gave  promise  of  being 
able  to  gain  a  competence  by  the  pen 
alone,  a  thing  which  no  writer  did,  or 
could  do,  in  that  day,  by  writing  for  the 
stage  alone.  Hon.  Cushman  K.  Davis  in 
^'The  Law"  in  Shakespeare"  says,  "He 
^^(Shakspere)  is  the  first  English  author 
^^who  made  a  fortune  with  his  pen."  In 
the  absence  of  credible  evidence,  Mr.  Da- 
vis assumes  that  the  young  man  who 
came  up  from  Stratford  was  the  author 
of  the  plays.  The  senator  does  not  seem 
aware    of    the    fact    that  Shakspere  of 


42  WILLIAM  SHAKSPERE 

Stratford  was  a  shareholding  actor,  re- 
ceiving a  share  in  the  theatre,  or  its  pro- 
fits, in  1599 ;  a  partner  in  one  or  more  of 
the  chief  companies;  a  play  broker  who 
purchased  arid  mounted  the  plays  of 
other  men;  and  that  he,  like  Burbage, 
Henslowe  and  Alleyn,  speculated  in  real 
estate.  He  was  shrewd  in  money  matters 
and  became  very  wealthy,  but  not  by 
writing  plays.  Suppose  .  that  William 
Shakspere  of  Stratford-on-Avon  had  au- 
thored all  the  plays  associated  with  his 
name,  that  alone  would  not  have  made 
him  wealthy.  The  price  of  a  play  varied 
from  four  to  ten  pounds,  and  all  Shaks- 
pere's  labors  for  the  public  theatre  would 
have  brought  no  more  than  five  hundred 
pounds.  The  diary  of  Philip  Henslowe 
makes  it  clear  that  up  to  the  year  1600 
the  highest  price  he  ever  paid  was  six 
pounds.  The  Shakespeare  plays  were  not 
exceptionally  popular  in  that  day,  not  be- 
ing then  as  now,  "the  talk  of  the  town." 
Not  one  of  them  equalled  in  popularity 


AND  ROBERT  GREENE  43 

Kid's  ^'Tlie  Spanish  Tragedy,"  or  Mar- 
lowe's ^^Dr.  Faustus." 

Shakespeare  was  soon  superseded  by 
Fletcher  in  popular  regard.  Only  one  of 
the  Shakespeare  tragedies,  one  historical 
play,  and  eight  comedies  were  presented 
at  the  Court  of  James  First,  who  reigned 
twenty-two  years.  Plays,  written  by  such 
hack  writers  as  Dearborn,  or  Chettle, 
were  quite  as  acceptable  to  princes. 

Robert  Greene's  romances  were  ^^a 
bower  of  delight,"  a  kind  of  writing  held 
in  high  favor  by  all  classes.  Sir  Thomas 
Overbury  describes  his  chambermaid  as 
reading  Greene's  works  over  and  over 
again.  It  is  a  pleasure  to  see  in  the  elder 
time  Greene's  writings  in  hands  so  full 
of  household  cares,  since  he  labored  to 
make  young  lives  happy.  Robert  Greene's 
works  express  every  variation  in  the 
changing  conditions  of  life.  The  poetry 
of  his  pastoral  landscapes  are  vivid  word 
pictures  of  English  sylvan  scenes.  The 
western  sky  on  amorous  autumn  days  is 
mantled  with  sheets  of  burnished  gold. 


44  WILLIAM  SHAKSPERE 

The  soft  and  gentle  zephyr  blows  over 
castled  crag  and  fairy  2i;len  fragrant  with 
the  breath  of  flowers. 

In  the  manuals  of  our  literature  great 
prominence  is  given  to  the  fact  that 
Greene  led  a  dissolute,  or  irregular,  life, 
as  if  the  debauchment  of  the  author  was 
transmitted  by  his  writings.  There  are 
no  indecencies  in  his  works  to  attest  the 
passage  of  a  debauchee.  Like  many  per- 
sons born  to,  and  nurtured  by,  religious 
parents,  Greene  doubtless  exaggerated 
his  own  vices.  He  was  bad,  but  not  alto- 
gether bad.  It  may  truly  be  said  of  him 
that,  in  regard  to  all  that  pertains  to  pen- 
itence and  self  abasem^ent,  he  spares  not 
himself,  but  like  John  Bun5^an,  he  was 
given  to  selfupbraiding.  He  (Bunyan) 
declares  that  it  is  true  that  he  let  loose 
the  reins  on  the  neck  of  his  lust ;  that  he 
delighted  in  all  transgressions  against  the 
divine  law;  and  that  he  was  the  ring 
leader  of  the  youth  of  Elstow  in  all  vice. 
But,  when  those  who  wished  him  ill,  ac- 
cused him  of  licentious  amours,  he  called 


AND  ROBERT  GREENE  45 

God  and  the  angels  to  attest  his  purity. 
No  woman,  lie  said,  in  heaven,  earth,  or 
hell,  could  charge  him  with  having  ever 
made  any  improper  advances  to  her. 
Blasphemy  and  Sabbath-breaking  seem 
to  have  been  Bunyan's  only  transgression 
after  all.  In  Robert  Greene's  writings, 
we  have  the  reverse  of  '^Herrick's  shame- 
^'ful  pleading  that  if  his  verse  was  im- 
'^pure,  his  life  was  chaste."  Unlike  Her- 
rick,  Greene  did  not  minister  to  the  un- 
chaste appetite  of  readers  for  tainted  lit- 
erature, either  in  his  day,  or  in  the  after 
time.  Powerless  to  condemn  Greene's 
writings,  Shakspere's  votaries  would  des- 
ecrate his  ashes. 

Deplore  as  we  must  his  dissolute  liv- 
ing, it  was  of  short  duration,  for  he  went 
from  earth  at  the  age  of  two  and  thirt}^, 
and  the  evil  effects  have  been  lost  in 
Time's  abatements.  His  associates, 
doubtless  were  as  dissolute  as  he  himself. 
Nash  wrote:  ^^With  any  notorious  crime 
'^I  never  knew  him  tainted,  and  he  inher- 
'^ited    more   virtues     than   vices."     The 


46  WILLIAM  SHAKSPERE 

reader,  at  any  rate,  will  give  but  little 
credence  to  the  accusations  of  such  a 
hyena-dog  as  Gabriel  Harvey.  Robert 
Greene  was  not  ^4ip-holy/'  nor  heart- 
hollow,  for,  in  regard  to  his  wife  and 
their  separation,  ^'he  took  to  himself  all 
^' blame,  breathed  never  a  word  against 
^^her,  and  did  not  squander  all  of  his 
^^ earnings  in  dissipation,  but  sent  part  of 
^'his  incom^e  to  the  good  woman,  the  wife 
^^of  his  youth,  and  addressed  to  her  in 
^ Moving  trust  the  last  letter  he  wrote." 
Gabriel  Harvey,  drenched  in  hate,  could 
not  rob  the  ^  ^  Sweet- wife  letter  of  its 
^^  pathos." 

In  all  the  galleries  of  noble  women, 
Greene's  heroines  deserve  a  foremost 
place,  for  all  the  gracious  types  of  wom- 
anhood belonged  to  Greene,  before  they 
became  Shakespeare's.  ^'Robert  Greene 
'^is  the  first  of  our  play-writers  to  repre- 
'^sent  upon  the  public  stage  the  purity 
^^and  sweetness  of  wife  and  maiden." 
Unselfish  love  and  maternity  are  sketched 
with  feminine  delicacy  and  minuteness  of 


AND  ROBERT  GREENE  47 

touch  in  all  the  tenderness  of  its  purit}^ 
His  writings  have  assauged  the  sorrow  of 
the  self-sacrificing  mother,  who  is  always 
a  queen  uncrowned,  long  suffering  and 
faithful.  Robert  Green  "i^  always  on  the 
^^side  of  the  angels."  When  loud  mouthed 
detraction  calls  him  badhearted,  we 
should  not  forget  that  this  confessedly 
dissolute  man  could,  and  did,  keep  invio- 
late the  purity  of  his  imagination;  few 
have  left  a  wealthier  legacy  in  feminine 
models  of  moral  and  physical  beauty. 
What  is  most  characteristic  in  the  pages 
of  Greene  is  the  absence  of  the  indecen- 
cies which  attest  the  passage  of  the  au- 
thor of  ^^Lear,"  ^^the  damnable  scenes 
^^  which  raised  the  anger  of  Swinburn  and 
^Svhich  Coleridge  attempted  in  vain  to 
''palliate." 

Little  is  known  of  Greene's  life;  and 
into  the  little  we  do  know,  his  malignant 
enemy,  Gabriel  Harvey,  has  attempted  to 
inject  a  deadly  virus.  The  inaccurate 
figurative  expressions  in  his  reputed 
posthumously  printed  works  (an  alleged 


48  WILLIAM  SHAKSPERE 

description  of  Iiis  manner  of  life)  cannot 
be  interpreted  literally,  ^'but  may  be 
^^  resolved  in  a  large  measure  into  morbid 
^^self-upbraidings  like  the  confession 
'^made  by  the  revival  convert  who  sees 
^^and  paints  his  past  in  its  very  darkest 
^^ colors."  But  why  should  the  m.odern 
reader  linger  over  the  irregularities  of 
dissolute-living  authors  like  Greene  and 
Poe,  whose  writings  are  exceptionally 
clean.  Remember  Robert  Burns'  noble 
words,  ^^What  done  we  partly  may  com- 
^^pute  but  know  not  what  resisted."  The 
commentators  and  pharisaic  critics,  who 
have  written  concerning  Greene,  are 
mere  computists  of  the  poet's  vices;  min- 
isters of  hate,  who  burlesque  the  poet's 
soul  stiffening  with  despair,  and  display 
their  ghoulish  instincts  ^4n  travestying 
^^so  pathetic  and  tragical  a  deathbed  as 
"^^ Greene's."  Students  of  Elizabethan 
literature  know  that  Robert  Greene  re- 
sisted the  temptation  to  write  in  the  best 
paying  vein  of  the  age,  that  of  minister- 
ing to  the  unchaste  appetites  of  readers 


AND  ROBERT  GREENE  49 

for  ribaldries.  ^^To  his  undying  honor 
^^  Robert  Greene,  equally  with  James 
^'Thompson,  left  scarcely  a  line,  that,  dy- 
^4ng,  he  need  have  wished  to  blot  out." 

There  is  no  record  extant  of  his  living 
likeness.  Chettle  gives  this  pleasant  de- 
scription of  his  personal  appearance, 
^'With  him  was  the  fifth,  a  man  of  indif- 
^^ferent  years;  of  face,  amiable;  of  body, 
^Svell  proportioned;  his  attire  after  the 
^^  habit  of  scholar-like  gentleman,  onl}^  his 
^^hair  was  somewhat  long,  whom  I  sup- 
'^  posed  to  be  Robert  Greene,  Master  of 
^^Arts."  ISTash  notices  his  tawny  beard, 
"si  jolly  long  red  peake  like  the  spire  of 
"a  steeple  which  he  cherished  continually 
^Svithout  cutting,  whereat  a  m.an  might 
^Miang  a  jewel,  it  was  so^harp  and  pend- 
^^ant."  Harvey,  who  had  never  seen 
Greene,  says  that  he  wore  such  long  hair 
as  was  only  worn  by  thieves  and  cut- 
throats, and  taunts  Nash  with  wearing 
the  same  ^^ unseemly  superfluity."  The 
habit  of  wearing  the  hair  long  is  not  un- 
usual  with   poets.     John   Milton   ^^cher- 


50  WILLIAM  SHAKSPERE 

^4shed  the  same  superfluity"  as  does  also 
Joaquin  Miller. 

Robert  Greene  expired  on  the  third  of 
September,  1592.  When  the  dead  genius 
was  in  his  grave,  Harvey  gloated  and 
leered  with  hellish  glee,  and  wrote  of 
Greene's  '^most  woeful  and  rascal  estate, 
^4iow  the  wretched  fellow  or,  shall  I  saj^, 
"the  prince  of  beggars,  laid  all  to  gage 
^^fore  some  few  shillings  and  was  at- 
' '  tended  by  lice. ' '  This  is  one  of  Harvey 's 
malignant,  vitriolic,  discharges  in  his  at- 
tempt to  spatter  the  memory  and  deface 
the  monument  of  the  dead.  ^^  Achilles 
^^  tortured  the  dead  body  of  Hector,  and, 
^^as  Antonious  and  his  wife,  Fulva,  tor- 
^'mented  the  lifeless  corpse  of  Cicero,  so 
'^Gabriel  Harvey  hath  showed  the  same 
'inhumanities  to  Greene  that  lies  low  in 
''his  grave."  The  testimony  of  Gabriel 
Harvey,  whose  malignant  attacks  on  the 
memory  of  Greene  by  monstrously  exag- 
gerated statement,  is  vitiated  by  his  own 
statement  that  "  he  was  cheated  out  of  an 


AND  ROBERT  GREENE  51 

^^  action  for  libel  against  Greene  by  his 
^^  death." 

Harvey  was  vulgarly  ostentations, 
courting  notoriety  by  the  gorgeousness  of 
his  apparel;  currying  favor  with  the 
great,  and  aping  Venetian  gentility  after 
his  return  from  Italy.  He  was  a  dabbler 
in  astrology,  a  prognosticator  of  earth- 
quakes, and  constructor  of  prophetic  al- 
manacs. The  failure  of  his  predictions 
subjected  him  to  much  bitter  ridicule. 
His  inordinate  vanity  is  best  shown  by 
his  publication  of  everything  spoken  or 
w^ritten  in  commendation  of  himself,  by 
his  obsequious  friends  and  flatterers,  who 
snickered  with  the  public  generally,  as  he 
was  an  object  of  ridicule,  the  butt  on 
which  to  crack  their  jokes. 

In  one  of  those  fanciful  studies  in 
Elizabethan  literature,  which  we  now  hold 
in  our  hand,  we  may  read,  in  a  work 
called  ^^A  Snip  for  an  Upstart  Courtier 
'^or  A  Quaint  Dispute  Between  Velvet- 
' '  -breeches  and  Cloth-breeches, ' '  that 
Greene   has  very  vulgarly   libeled   Har- 


52  WILLIAM  SHAKSPERE 

vey's  ancestry;  but,  when  we  turn  to 
Greene 's  book  we  learn  that  the  vulgarity 
consists  in  calling  Gabriel  Harvey's 
father  a  ropemaker.  Only  a  snob  would 
regard  any  honest  employment  as  a  deg- 
radation, and  furthermore,  the  passage 
does  not  point  contumeliously  and  spite- 
fully at  Gabriel  Harvey's  father,  for  the 
reference  is  very  slight.  '^How  is  he 
^^  (Gabriel's  father)  abused?"  writes 
Nash,  ^^  Instead  of  his  name  he  is  called 
^^by  the  craft  he  gets  his  living  with." 
Still  the  lines  which  so  mortally  offended 
Gabriel  were  suppressed  by  Greene.  Not- 
withstanding this,  those  biographers  and 
critics  whose  sole  object  is  to  blacken  the 
poet's  memory,  conceal  from  the  reader 
the  fact  of  the  detachment  of  all  refer- 
ence to  a  rope-maker.  Harvey  was  ex- 
tremely anxious  to  push  himself  among; 
the  aristocrac^y  in  order  to  conceal  his 
humble  antecedents. 

With  all  his  faults,  there  was  nothing 
of  this  weakness  or  snobbishness  in  Robert 
Greene,  who  had  himself  sprung  from  the 


AND  ROBERT  GREENE  53 

common  people,  though  born  to  good  con- 
dition. Eobert  Burton,  a  contemporary, 
writing  in  ^^The  Spacious  Time  of  the 
^^ Great  Elizabeth"  says  that  idleness  was 
the  mark  of  the  nobility,  and  to  earn 
mone}^  in  any  kind  of  trade  was  despic- 
able. Gabriel  Harvey  flung  in  Greene's 
face  the  fact  that  he  made  a  living  by  his 
pen.  Had  young  Greene  lived  a  longer 
life,  wdth  all  its  wealth  of  bud  and  bloom, 
we  should  now  have  in  fruition  a  luxur- 
iance of  imagination  and  versatility  of 
diction  possessed  by  few.  With  longer 
life  he  would  doubtless  ^^have  gained 
^'mastery  of  himself,  when  he  would  have 
^'gone  forward  on  the  path  of  moral  re- 
^' generation;"  for  there  was  in  the  po- 
et's strivings,  during  the  last  few  years 
of  his  life,  the  promise  and  prophecy  of 
a  glorious  future.  His  soul  enlarged,  he 
battled  for  the  commonweal;  his  heart 
was  with  the  lowly  and  his  voice  was  for 
the  right  when  freedom's  friends  were 
few. 

In  his  play   '^The  Pinner  of   Wake- 


54  WILLIAM  SHAKSPERE 

''field,''  first  printed  in  1599,  Eobert 
Greene  makes  a  hero,  and  a  very  strenu- 
ous one,  of  a  mere  pound-keeper  who 
proudly  refuses  knighthood  at  the  hands 
of  the  king.  In  the  sketch  given  by  Pro- 
fessor J.  M.  Brown  we  read,  ''In  the  first 
"scene  of  the  play  w^hen  Sir  Nicolas  Man- 
"nering  appears  in  Wakefield  with  his 
"commission  from  the  rebel.  Earl  of  Ken- 
"dal,  and  demands  victuals  for  the  rebel 
"army,  the  stalwart  pound-keeper  steps 
"forward,  makes  the  knight  eat  his  words 
"and  then  his  seal!  'What!  are  you  in 
'"choler?  I  will  give  you  pills  to  cool 
'"your  stomach.  Seest  thou  these  seals? 
'"Now  by  my  father's  soul,  which  was  a 
'"yeoman's  when  he  was  alive,  eat  them 
"'or  eat  my  dagger's  point,  proud 
'"squire !'  The  Earl  of  Kendal  and  other 
"noblem.en  next  appear  in  disguise  and 
"send  their  horses  into  the  Pinner's  corn 
"to  brave  him.  The  pound-keeper  ap- 
"proaches  and  after  altercation  strikes 
"the  Earl.  Lord  Bondfield  says,  'Villain, 
'"what  hast  thou  done?  Thou  hast  struck 


AND  ROBERT  GREENE  55 

'^'an  Earl.'  Pinner  answers,  ^Why,  what 
^'^care  I?  A  poor  man  that  is  true  is  bet- 
^^^ter  than  an  earl  if  he  be  false'."  A 
yeoman  boxing  or  cuffing  the  ear  of  an 
earl!  This  has  all  the  breezy  freshness 
of  American  democracy.  . 

^^How  different  from  this  is  Shakes- 
'^peare's  conception  of  the  place  of  the 
^^working-man  in  society.  In  King  Lear,\ 
"si  good  servant  protests  against  the  cru- 
^'elty  of  Regan  and  Cornwall  toward 
^^  Gloucester,  and  is  killed  for  his  cour- 
^^age."  '^Give  me  my  sword,"  cries  Re- 
gan, "a  peasant  stand  up  thus!"  The 
voice  of  the  yeoman  is  often  heard  in 
Greene's  drama,  not  as  buifoon  and 
lackey,  as  in  Shakespeare,  but  as  freeman 
whose  voice  is  echoed  at  Naseby  and ' 
Marston's  gory  fields  of  glory,  w^here  the 
sturdy  yeomanry  of  England  strove  to  do 
and  to  dare  for  the  eternal  right— sol- 
diers w^ho  never  cowered  from  ^^sheen  of 
^^ spear,"  nor  blanched  at  flashing  steel. 
With  Greene  rank  is  never  the  measure 
of  merit  as  with  Shakespeare.     To  peer 


56  WILLIAM  SHAKSPERE 

and  yeoman  alike,  he  gave  equal  hospital- 
ity; for  Robin  Greene,  as  his  friends 
called  him,  was  as  friendly  to  the  poor 
man's  rags  as  to  the  pnrple  Robe  of 
King.  Greene  in  his  popular  sympathies 
is  thoroughly  with  the  working  classes, 
the  common  people,  of  whom  Lincoln 
saj^s,  ^^God  loves  most,  otherwise  he 
''would  not  have  made  so  many  of  them." 
His  heroes  and  heroines  are  taken,  many 
of  them,  from  humble  life.  In  his  Pin- 
ner of  Wakefield  there  is  a  very  clear 
discernment  of  democratic  principle  in 
the  struggle  against  prerogative.  Half 
of  those  plays  of  Greene's  which  we  still 
possess,  are  devoted  to  the  representation 
of  the  life  of  the  common  people  which 
gave  lineage  to  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ben- 
jamin Franklin  and  John  Bunyan.  If 
these  are  any  guide  to  his  character,  his  is 
one  distinguished  both  by  his  amicable 
and  by  his  amiable  qualities. 

We  have  in  the  ''Coney-catching  se- 
"ries"  Greene's  exposure  of  the  practice 
of  sharpers  and  knaves,  who  were  fleec- 


AND  ROBERT  GREENE  57 

ing  the  country  people  who  came  to  Lon- 
don. The  author  of  these  tracts  shows 
great  courage  in  his  effort  to  abate  fool- 
catching.  Greene's  life  was  threatened, 
and  it  required  the  utmost  exertion  of  his 
friends  to  prevent  his  assassination.  The 
Coney-catching  knaves,  who  felt  the  hal- 
ter being  drawn  about  their  necks,  threat- 
ened to  cut  off  his  hand  if  he  would  not 
desist.  Greene,  notwithstanding  these 
threats,  would  not  be  swerved  from  his 
noble  aim,  but  met  them  like  a  true  Ro- 
man, single-handed  and  alone,  while  his 
literary  enemies  took  advantage  of  this 
opportunity  to  blacken  his  good  name. 
^^  Greene  made  these  revelations  for  the 
'^good  of  the  commonwealth,  and  dis- 
^ Splayed  great  courage  in  facing  all  risks 
^4n  so  doing.  No  books  are  more  out- 
'^and-out  sincere." 

Greene's  account  of  the  repentance  and 
reform.ation  of  a  fallen  woman,  told  in  a 
way  that  discloses  the  poet's  kindness  of 
heart  and  fullness  of  humanitarian 
spirit,    reveals   his  better  self.    ^^He  as- 


58  WILLIAM  SHAKSPERE 

^^sured  liis. readers,  in  the  words  of  the 
^^ woman  herself,  that  her  first  false  step 
^^gradually  led  her  on  to  complete  ruin, 
^^so  heavy-burdened  with  grief  and 
^^ shame  that  death  seemed  to  her  a  bene-. 
^ ^faction,  and  the  grave  the  only  place  for 
'^perfect  rest/'  Not  a  few  there  may 
have  been,  who,  on  reading  Greene's  ac- 
count of  the  reformation  and  redemption 
of  this  unfortunate  woman,  were  started 
on  the  path  of  regeneration,  while  the 
dim-eyed  critic  can  see  nothing  but  the 
blurred  reputation  of  the  poet.  But  \yho 
shall  estimate  Robert  Greene's  influence 
on  individual  happiness?  Who  shall  say 
how  many  thousands  have  been  made 
Aviser,  happier,  and  better  by  a  writer 
who  held  out  a  kind  and  friendly  hand, 
and  had  a  heart  as  true  behind  it?  His 
statue  would  crown  Trafalgar's  towerino; 
shaft  more  worthily  than  the  statue  of 
England's  greatest  naval  hero  does;  for 
there  is  more  true  honor  and  merit  in  the 
man  who  wrote  purely  to  bring  back 
from  evil  coursers  to  a  state  of  moral  rec- 


AND  ROBERT  GREENE  59 

titude,  than  in  a  monument  for  the  vic- 
tory over  many  enemies. 

Greene's  non-dramatic  works  are  the 
largest  contribution  left  by  any  Eliza- 
bethan writer  to  the  novel  literature  of 
the  day.  ^^He  was  at  once  the  most  ver- 
^^satile  and  the  most  laborious  of  literary 
^^men."  Famous,  witty,  and  brilliant,  he 
Avas  one  of  the  founders  of  English  fic- 
tion, and  is  conceded  to  be  the  author  of 
half  a  dozen  plays  for  the  theatre.  In 
them  we  have  the  mere  ^^  flotsam  and  jet- 
^^sam"  of  his  prolific  pen.  What  would 
we  not  give  for  all  the  plays  of  Robert 
Greene  from  whom  his  contemporaries 
and  successors  purloyned  plumes!  Ac- 
cording to  Ben  Jonson,  it  was  as  safe  to 
pillage  from  Greene  in  his  day,  as  it  is  to 
persecute  his  reputation  in  ours.  He  was 
a  graduate  of  both  universities,  was  a 
man  of  genius,  but  did  not  live  to  do  his 
talents  full  justice.  A  born  story  teller, 
like  Sir  Walter  Scott,  he  could  do  good 
work  easily  and  quickly. 

We  glean  the  following  from  the  pages 


60  WILLIAM  SHAKSPERE 

of  '^Tlie  English  Novel  in  the  Time  of 
^Shakespeare,"  by  J.  J.  Jusserand, 
^Greene's  prose  tale,  'Pandosto,  the  Tri- 
^^umph  of  Time,"  had  an  extraordinary 
^success,  while  Shakspere's  drama  ^Win- 
^Her's  Tale^  founded  on  Greene's  Pan- 
^dosto  was  not  printed,  either  in  authen- 
^tic  or  pirated  shape,  before  the  appear- 
^ance  of  the  1623  folio,  while  Greene's 
Uprose  story  was  published  in  1588  and 
'was  renamed  half  a  century  later,  'The 
''History  of  Dorostus  and  Fawnia.'  So 
'popular  was  it  that  it  was  printed, again 
'and  again.  We  know^  of  at  least  seven- 
'teen  editions,  and  in  all  likelihood  there 
'were  more  throughout  the  seventeenth 
'century,  and  even  under  one  shape  or 
'another  throughout  the  eighteenth.  It 
'was  printed  as  a  chap-book  during  this 
'last  period  and  in  this  costume  began  a 
'new  life.  It  was  turned  into  verse  in 
'1672,  but  the  highest  and  most  extraor- 
'dinary  compliment  of  Greene's  per- 
'formance  was  its  translation  into 
'French,  not  only  once  but  twice.     The 


AND  ROBERT  GREENE  61 

'^  first  time  was  at  a  moment  when  the 
^'English  language  and  literature  were 
^'practically  unknown  and  as  good  as 
^^non-existent  to  French  readers.  In  fact 
^' every  thing  from  Greene's  pen  sold.  All 
^^of  his  writings  enjoyed  great  popular- 
^^ity  in  their  day,  and,  after  the  lapse  of 
''three  centuries,  have  been  deemed  wor- 
"thj  of  publication,  insuring  the  reha- 
''bilitation  of  Greene's  splendid  genius." 
We  are  content  to  believe  that  almost 
all  of  the  so-called  posthumous  writings 
of  Eobert  Greene  are  spurious,  and  that 
but  few  genuine  chips  were  found  in  the 
literary  work-shop  of  the  poet  after  his 
death.  We  accept  the  very  striking  and 
impressive  address  to  his  brother  play- 
wrights, the  after-words  to  a  ''Groats 
Worth  of  Wit."  We  also  may  shyly  ac- 
cept the  sweet  wife  letter  as  the  authentic 
product  of  the  poet's  mind,  heart  and 
hand.  Of  this  letter,  there  are  tw^o  ver- 
sions, neither  of  which  are  very  trust- 
worthj^,  as  both  are  from  posthumed  pam- 
phlets.    One,  which  we  believe  to  be  a 


62  WILLIAM  SHAKSPERE 

forgery,  is  found  in  ''The  Repentance." 
The  other  is  found  in  a  pamphlet  written 
by  his  malignant  enemy,  Harvey,  which 
contains  an  account  of  the  poet's  last  ill- 
ness and  death.  Nash  writes  about  Har- 
vey, ''From  the  lousy  circumstance  of  his 
"poverty  before  his  death  and  sending 
"that  miserable  writt  to  his  wife,  it  can- 
"not  be  but  thou  lyest,  learned  Gabriel." 
We  would  not  set  down  as  auto-biograph- 
ical the  posthumous  pamphlets,  even 
though  of  unquestioned  authenticity,  for 
in  the  repentance  Greene  is  made  to  sav, 
"I  need  not  make  long  discourse  of  my 
"parents  who  for  their  gravitie  and  hon- 
"est  life  are  well  known  and  esteemed 
"among  their  neighbors,  namely  in  the 
"citie  of  Norwich  where  I  was  bred  and 
"borne;"  and  then  he  is  made  to  contra- 
dict all  this  in  "Groats  Worth  of  Wit," 
where  the  father  is  called  Gorinius,  a  de- 
spicable miser.  "Greene  is  not  known  to 
"have  had  a  brother  to  be  the  victim  of 
"his  cozenage." 

As  "there  is  a  soul  of  truth  in  things 


AND  ROBERT  GREENE 


6'S 


^•^ erroneous/'  there  may  be  a  soul  of  truth 
in  the  following  letter  contained  in  ^'The 
^^Eepentance": 

^^  Sweet  wife,  if  ever  there  was  any 
^^good  will  or  friendship  between  thee 
''and  me,  see  this  bearer  (my  host) 
''satisfied  of  his  debt.  I  ow^e  him  tenne 
"pounds  and  but  for  him  I  had  per- 
"ished  in  the  streetes.  Forget  and  for- 
"give  my  wrongs  done  unto  thee  and 
"Almighty  God  have  mercie  on  my 
"soule.  Farewell  till  w^e  meet  in  hea- 
"ven  for  on  earth  thou  shalt  never  see 
"me  more. 
"This  2nd  day  of  Sept.,  1592. 

"Written  by  thy  dying  husband, 
"ROBERT  GREENE." 

The  reader  will  notice  the  statement  in 
the  posthumed  letter  that  the  poet  had 
contracted  a  debt  to  the  sum  of  ten 
pounds,  equal  to  $400  present  money,  but 
there  is  nothing  whatever  about  leaving 
many  papers  in  sundry  bookseller's 
hands  which  Chettle  averred  in  the  ad- 
dress "To  the  Gentlemen  Readers  Kind 
"Hearts  Dreame."    If  this  were  a  fact, 


64  WILLIAM  SHAKSPERE 

the  bookseller  doubtless  would  have  been 
called  upon;  "see  this  bearer  (my  host) 
'^satisfied  of  his  debt/'  and  sweet  wife 
would  not  have  bourne  the  burden  while 
booksellers  felt  themselves  blest  to  pay 
dear  for  the  very  dregs  of  her  husband's 
wit. 

Those  writers  who  express  no  doubt  of 
the  authenticity  of  the  posthumed  pam- 
phlets, leave  their  readers  to  set  down  as 
auto-biographical  whatever^  portions  of 
those  pieces  he  may  think  proper.  At  the 
same  time  the  trend  of  impulse  is  given 
the  reader  by  the  critics  that  he  may  not 
fail  to  read  the  story  of  the  poet's  life  out 
of  characters  devoid  of  all  faith  in  hon- 
esty and  in  virtue,  while  the  author 
(Greene)  is  anxious  evidently  to  point  a 
moral  by  them  and  reprove  vice.  These 
forged  pamphlets  and  so-called  auto- 
biographical pamphlets  make  Greene  ac- 
cuse him. self  of  crimes  which  he  surely 
did  not  commit,  such  as  the  crime  of  theft 
and  murder.  He  says,  ^^I  exceeded  all 
^'others  in  these  kinds  of  sinnes,"  and  he 


AND  ROBERT  GREENE  65 

is  represented  as  the  most  atrocious  vil- 
lain that  ever  walked  the  earth.  There  is 
not  an  atom  of  evidence  adduced  to  show 
Francisco  in  ^^ Never  Too  Late"  was  in- 
tended by  the  author  for  a  picture  of  him- 
self, and  we  do  not  believe  that  Greene 
wrote  the  pamphlet  in  which  Roberto,  in 
^^ Groats  Worth  of  Wit"  is  one  of  the  de- 
spicable characters. 

Very  little  is  known  with  any  degree  of 
certainty  concerning  the  personal  life  of 
Robert  Greene,  and  very  little,  if  any- 
thing, in  regard  to  his  family  or  ancestry, 
although  much  prominence  is  given  by 
imaginary  writers  to  the  history  of  his 
person  in  the  manuals  of  our  literature. 
These  writers  attach  an  auto-biograph- 
ical reality  to  their  dreams  of  fancy. 
They  take  advantage  of  Greene's  un- 
bounded sincerity  and  his  own  too  candid 
confession  in  the  address  to  the  pla}^- 
writers,  and  of  his  irrepressible  desire  to 
sermonize,  whether  in  plays  or  pamphlets, 
with  all  the  fervor  of  a  devout  Methodist 
having  a  license  to  exhort.     The  closest 


66  WILLIAM  SHAKSPERE 

analogy  to  Greene's  position,  in  fact,  is 
that  of  the  revival  preacher— as  Prof. 
Storojenko  puts  it— '^ who,  to  make  the 
^picture  of  the  present  as  telling  as  pos- 
^sible,  sees  and  paints  his  past  in  its  very 
^blackest  colors.  This  self-flagellation  is 
^strongly  connected  with  a  really  attrac- 
'tive  feature  of  Greene's  character;  we 
^mean  his  sincerity,  a  boundless  sincerity 
Svhich  never  allowed  him  to  spare  him- 
^self.  Robert  Greene  was  incapable  of 
^posing  and  pretending  to  be  what  he 
^was  not.  This  is  whv  we  may  fearlessly 
^believe  him  w^hen  he  speaks  of  the  an- 
^guish  of  his  soul  and  the  sincerity  of 
'his  repentance.  A  man  whose  deflection 
'from  the  path  of  virtue  cost  him  so 
'much  moral  suffering  cannot,  of  course, 
'be  measured  by  the  same  standard  as 
'the  man  who  acts  basely,  remains  at 
'peace  with  himself  and  defends  his 
'  faults  by  all  kinds  of  sophistry.  S'peak- 
'ing  further  of  his  literary  labors,  he 
'never  dealt  in  personalities  in  exposing 
'some  of  the  crying  nuisances  of  London 


AND  ROBERT  GREENE  67 

^^and  is  perfectly  silent  as  to  the  moral 
^^  change  in  his  own  character,  which  was 
^'the  frnit  of  his  dealing  with  them.  In 
"si  w^ord,  he  conceals  all  that  might,  in  his 
^^  opinion,  modify  the  sentence  that  he 
^^  pronounces  on  his  own  life  for  the  edi- 
^'fication  of  others." 


IV 


There  is  a  commendative  piece  of  writ- 
ing which  should  be  read  in  connection 
with  Greene's  letter  to  ^^ divers  play- 
'^ makers.''  We  refer  to  the  preface  to 
^^Kind  Hearts  Dreams,"  written  by 
Henry  Chettle,  which  was  registered  De- 
cember  8,  1592.  Chettle  says,  ^^  About 
'Hhree  months  since  died  M.  Robert 
^'Greene,  leaving  many  papers  in  sundry 
^'book-seller's  hands,  among  others,  his 
^'^ Groats  Worth  of  Wit'  in  which  a  letter 
'^  written  to  diverse  play-makers  is  offen- 
^'sively  by  one  or  two  of  them  taken." 
Chettle 's  statement  about  many  papers  in 
sundry  book-sellers  hands  may  be  dis- 
credited because  of  the  poet's  urgent  ne- 
cessities, and  the  strong  desire  on  the 
part  of  book-sellers  to  publish  Greene's 
Avritings.  Of  this  we  may  be  sure,  that 
the  letter  w^as  not  placed  in  book-sellers 
hands  by  Greene  or  for  him.  He  would 
not  have  called  his  friends  to  repentance 


AND  ROBERT  GREENE  69 

in  that  way,  for  it  would  have  given  pub- 
licity to  the  defects  in  the  lives  of  his 
friends  as  well  as  his  own. 

The  letter  evidences  the  fact  of  its  hav- 
ing been  written  as  a  private  letter  to 
three  of  the  poet's  friends  (Marlowe, 
Nash  and  Peele).  If  sent,  it  did  not  reach 
them,  but  was  surreptitiously  procured, 
doubtless,  by  some  hack-writer,  (inferen- 
tially,  Henry  Chettle,  who  transcribed 
it.)  Gabriel  Harvey  may  have  been  ac- 
cessory to  its  procurement,  as  his  ghoul- 
ish instinct  led  him  to  visit  the  poor  shoe- 
maker's house  where  Greene  died,  on  the 
day  following  the  poet's  funeral  in  search 
of  matter  foul  and  defamatory,  and  with 
ink  of  slander  to  blacken  the  poet's  mem- 
ory. This  snobbish  ape  of  gentility,  Ga- 
briel Harvey,  hated  Greene  because  he 
called  his  father  by  "the  craft  he  gets  his 
^ living  with."  However,  when  Greene 
learned  that  Harvey  was  ashamed  of  his 
father's  humble  employment,  that  of 
ropemaker,  he  straightway  canceled  the 
offensive  allusion,  but  Harvey  still  con- 


70  WILLIAM  SHAKSPERE 

tinned  to  manifest  the  same  hatefnl  ma- 
lignity and  venomons  spite.  The  letter  is 
a  fine  character  stndy  of  the  three  poets 
addressed.  Greene  drew  out  the  true 
feature  of  every  distinguishing  mark  or 
trait,  both  mental  and  moral,  of  these,  his 
fellow-craftsmen,  who,  though  he  did  not 
name  them,  are  asserted  to  he  Marlowe, 
Nash  and  Peele.  Greene  characterized 
them  indiAddually,  and  twice  he  collec- 
tively admonished  them  thus,  ^^Base 
^ ^minded  men  all  three  of  you,  if  by  my 
^'miseries  ye  be  not  warned,"  and,  in  the 
concluding  part  of  the  letter,  ^'But  now 
'^return  I  again  to  you  three,  knowing  my 
''miseries  is  to  you  no  news  and  let  me 
''heartily  entreat  you  to  be  warned  by 
"my  harm.es." 

All  of  Shakspere's  biographers  and 
comm.entators  aver  that  Shakspere  was 
not  one  of  the  three  persons  addressed. 
How  then  could  Chettle's  words  bear  wit- 
ness to  his  ( Shakspere 's)  civil  demeanor 
or  factitious  grace  in  writing.  Mr.  Pleay 
stated  many  years  ago  (1886)  that  there 


AND  ROBERT  GREENE  71 

was  an  entire  misconception  of  Chettle's 
language  that  Sliakspere  was  not  one  of 
those  w^ho  took  offense.  They  are  ex- 
pressl}^  stated  to  have  been  two  of  the 
three  authors  addressed  by  Greene.  The 
recent  Shakespearean  writers  have  evi- 
dently mistaken  Chettle's  placation  of 
Nash  or  Peele,  or  either  of  the  three  play- 
makers  addressed  by  Greene,  it  does  not 
matter  which,  for  an  apology  to  Sliaks- 
pere, who  was  not  the  object  of  Greene's 
satire  or  Chettle's  placation  for  were  not 
Nash,  Marlowe  and  Peele  each  ^^  excellent 
^4n  the  quality  he  professes?"  Had  they 
not  lived  in  an  age  of  compliment  they 
would  have  merited  these  complim.ental 
phrases  of  Henry  Chettle?  For  their 
names  were  in  the  trump  of  fame. 

Christopher  Marlowe,  the  first  great 
English  poet,  was  the  father  of  English 
tragedy  and  the  creator  of  English  blank 
verse.  He  is,  by  general  consent,  identi- 
fied with  the  first  person  addressed  by 
Greene,  ^^With  thee  will  I  first  begin, 
'Hhou  famous  gracer  of  tragedians,  who 


72  WILLIAM  SHAKSPERE 

^'hath  said  in  his  heart  there  is  no  God. 
^'Wliy  sliould  thy  excellent  wit,  His  gift, 
^^be  so  blinded  that  thou  should  give  no 
''glory  to  the  giver?"  The  second  per- 
son referred  to  is  identifiable  with 
Thomas  Nash,  ''With  thee  I  join,  young 
"juvenall,  that  by  ting  satyrist,''  though 
not  with  equal  accord,  as  the  first  with 
Marlowe,  as  some  few  persons  prefer  to 
name  Thomas  Lodge.  This  prediliction 
for  Lodge  is  based  on  their  having  been 
co-authors  in  the  making  of  a  play 
("That  lastlie  with  me  together  writ  a 
"comedie").  This  fact,  however,  signi- 
fies very  little,  for  it  is  generally  conceded 
that  Marlowe,  Nash,  Peele,  Lodge  and 
Greene  mobilized  their  literary  activities 
in  the  production  of  not  a  few  of  the  ear- 
lier plays  called  Shakspere's. 

We  are  convinced  that  Lodge  was  not 
the  person  addressed  by  Greene  as  young 
juvenall.  He  was  absent  from  England 
at  the  date  of  Greene's  letter,  having  left 
in  1591  and  did  not  return  till  1593, 
Moreover,  he  had  declared  his  intention 


AND  ROBERT  GREENE  ,73 

long  before  to  write  no  more  for  the  the- 
atre. In  1589  he  vowed  '^to  write  no  more 
''of  that  whence  shame  doth  grow."  At 
Christmas  time  in  1592  he  was  in  the 
Straits  of  Magellan.  Born  in  1550,  Lodge 
led  a  virtuous  and  quiet  life.  He  was 
seventeen  years  older  than  Nash,  and 
four  years  older  than  Greene,  who  would 
not,  in  addressing  one  four  years  his  sen- 
ior, have  used  these  words,  ''Sweet  bo}^ 
"might  I  advise  thee."  The  youthful- 
ness  of  Nash  fits  well.  He  was  boyish  in 
appearance.  Born  in  Nov.,  1567,  he  was 
seven  years  younger  than  Greene,  and 
was  the  youngest  member  of  their  fellow- 
ship. The  mild  reproof  "for  his  too 
"much  liberty  of  speech"  contained  in 
the  letter,  justifies  the  belief  that  Thomas 
Nash  was  referred  to  as  "young  juvenall, 
"that  by  ting  satyrist,  who  had  vexed 
"scholars  with  bitter  lines." 

The  equal  unanimity  and  general  con- 
sent which  identifies  the  first  with  Mar- 
lowe, identifies  the  third  and  last  person, 
who  had  been  co-worker  in  drama  making 


74  WILLIAM  SHAKSPERE 

of  the  same  fellowship,  with  George 
Peele,  ^^and  thou  no  less  deserving  than 
^^the  other  two,  in  some  things  rarer,  in 
^^ nothing  inferior"  driven  (as  myself)  to 
^^extreame  shifts,  a  little  have  I  to  say  to 
^Hhee.''  Chettle  could,  however,  have 
bourne  witness  to  Peele  "his  civil  de- 
'^meanor  and  factitious  grace  in  writ- 
^4ng."  Peele  held  the  situation  of  city 
poet  and  conductor  of  pageants  for  the 
court.  His  first  pageant  bears  the  date 
of  1585,  his  earliest  known  play,  ''The 
''Arraignment  of  Paris"  was  acted  be- 
fore 1584.  "Peele  was  the  object  of  pat- 
"ronage  of  noblemen  for  addressing  lit- 
"erary  tributes  for  payment.  The  Earl 
"of  Northumberland  seems  to  have  pre- 
"sented  him  with  a  fee  of  three  pounds, 
"In  May,  1591,  when  Queen  Elizabeth 
"visited  Lord  Burleigh's  seat  of  Thea- 
"bald,  Peele  was  employed  to  compose 
"certain  speeches  addressed  to  the  queen, 
"which  deftly  excused  the  absence  of  the 
"master  of  the  house,  by  describing  in 
"blank  verse  in  his  'Polyphymnic,'    the 


AND  ROBERT  GREENE  75 

^4ioiiorable  triumph  at  tilt.  Her  majesty 
^^was  received  by  the  Right  Honorable 
^Hhe  Earl  of  Cumberland."  In  January, 
1595,  George  Peele,  Master  of  Arts,  pre- 
sented his  ^^Tale  of  Troy"  to  the  great 
Lord  Treasurer  through  a  simple  messen- 
ger, his  eldest  daughter,  ^^necessities 
^^ servant."  Peele  was  a  practised  rhet- 
orician, who  embellished  his  writings 
with  elegantly  adorned  sentences  and 
choice  fancies.  He  was  a  man  of  pol- 
ished intellect  and  social  gifts,  and  pos- 
sessed of  a  very  winsome  personality. 
^'His  soft,  caressing  woman  voice"  low, 
sweet  and  soothing,  may  have  had  a  con- 
siderable effect  upon  Chettle,  and  could 
not  have  been  unduly  honored  by  Chet- 
tle's  apology  in  witnessing  '^his  civil  de- 
^^meanor  and  factitious  grace  in  writ- 
^4ng." 

As  Henry  Chettle  had  been  brought 
into  some  discredit  by  the  publication  of 
Greene's  celebrated  letter,  and  his  admis- 
sion that  he  re-wrote  it,  we  know  that  the 
letter  must  have  been  surreptitiously  pro- 


76  WILLIAM  SHAKSPERE 

cured  as  evidenced  by  its  contents.  The 
letter  is  as  authentic,  doubtless,  as  any 
garbled  or  mutilated  document  may  be; 
but  Cliettle's  foolish  statement  contained 
in  his  preface  to  ^'Kind  Hearts  Dreams" 
has  awakened  the  suspicion,  in  regard  to 
the  authorship  of  ^^  Groats  Worth  of 
^'Wit,"  that,  while  the  letter  (or  as  much 
as  Chettle  chose  to  have  published)  is 
genuine,  '^I  put  something  out,"  the  pam- 
phlet ^^ Groats  Worth  of  Wit"  is  spuri- 
ous, and  evidently  not  the  w^ork  of  Robert 
Greene.  Who  can  be  content  to  believe 
Chettle 's  statement  that  Greene  placed 
this  criminating  letter  in  the  hands  of 
printers,  or  that  it  was  left  in  their  hands 
by  others  at  his  request?  A  private  let- 
ter, written  to  three  friends,  who  have 
been  co-workers  in  drama-making,  call- 
ing them  to  repentance,  charging  one 
(Marlowe)  with  diabolical  atheism!  This 
was  a  very  serious  charge  in  those  times, 
when  persons  were  burnt  at  the  stake  for 
professing  their  unbelief  in  the  doctrine 
of  the  Trinity. 


AND  ROBERT  GREENE  77 

Chettle  was  the  first  to  make  current 
the  charge  of  atheism  against  Marlowe, 
the  one  of  them  that  took  offense,  and 
w^hose  acquaintance  he  (Chettle)  did  not 
seek.  Chettle  reverenced  Marlowe's 
learning,  and  w^ould  have  his  readers  be- 
lieve that  he  did  greatly  mitigate  Greene's 
charge,  but  the  contents  of  the  letter  as 
transcribed  by  Chettle  and  printed  by  the 
bookm^akers,  discredit  Chettle 's  state- 
ment, as  the  charge  of  diabolical  atheism 
was  not  struck  out,  and  was,  if  proven, 
punishable  by  death. 

There  is  no  evidence  adduced  to  show 
that  Marlowe  was  indignant  because  of 
Greene's  admonition,  contained  in  a  pri- 
vate letter  written  to  three  play-makers 
of  his  own  fellowship,  but  resented  the 
public  charge  of  atheism,  for  which  he, 
Chettle,  as  accessory  and  transcriber, 
was  chiefly  responsible  in  making  public. 
We  know  that  Marlowe  was  in  retreat  at 
the  time  of  his  death  at  Deptford,  for  in 
May,  1593,  following  the  publication  of 
Greene's  letter  printed  at  the  end  of  the 


78  WILLIAM  SHAKSPERE 

pamphlet,  ^^ Groats  Worth  of  Wit/'  the 
Privy  Council  issued  a  warrant  for  Mar- 
lowe's arrest.  A  copy  of  Marlowe's  blas- 
phemies, so  called,  was  sent  to  Her  High- 
ness, and  endorsed  by  one  Richard  Bame, 
who  was  soon  after  hanged  at  Tyburn  for 
some  loathsome  crimx.  But  a  few  days 
later,  before  Marlowe's  apprehension, 
they  wrote  in  the  parish-book  at  Dept- 
ford  on  June  1st  ^^Christopher  Marlowe 
^^ slain  by  Francis  Archer."  At  the  age 
of  thirty,  he,  ^^the  first  and  greatest  in- 
'^ heritor  of  unfulfilled  renown,"  went 
where  ^'Orpheus  and  where  Homer  are." 
The  loss  to  English  letters  in  Mar- 
lowe's untimely  death  cannot  be  mea- 
sured, nevertheless,  England  of  that  day 
was  spared  the  infamy  of  his  execution. 
However,  the  zealots  of  those  days  found 
a  subject,  in  Francis  Kett,  a  fellow  of 
Marlowe 's  college,  who  was  burnt  in  Nor- 
wich in  1589  for  heresy.  Unlike  Mar- 
lowe, he  was  a  pious.  God-fearing  man 
Avho  fell  a  victim  to  the  strenuousity  with 
which  he  maintained  his  religious  convic- 


AND  ROBERT  GREENE  79 

tions.  Another  subject  was  found  in  the 
person  of  Bartholomew  Leggett,  who  was 
burnt  at  the  stake  for  stating  his  confes- 
sion of  faith,  which  was  identical  with  the 
religious  belief  of  Thomas  Jefferson  and 
President  William  H.  Taft.  The  times 
were  thirsty  for  the  blood  of  daring  spir- 
its. The  shores  of  the  British  Isles  were 
strewn  with  the  wreckage  of  the  great 
Armada.  In  Germany,  Kepler  (he  of  the 
three  laws)  was  struggling  to  save  his 
poor  old  mother  from  being  burnt  at  the 
stake  for  a  witch.  In  Italy,  they  burnt 
Bruno  at  the  stake  while  Galileo  played 
recanter. 

That  Marlowe  was  one  of  the  play- 
makers  w^ho  felt  incensed  at  the  publica- 
tion of  Greene's  letter  admits  of  no  doubt. 
He  most  likely  would  have  resented  the 
public  charge  of  atheism.  ^^With  neither 
^^of  them  that  take  offense  was  I  ac- 
^'quainted  (writes  Chettle)  and  w4th  one 
^^of  them  (Marlowe)  I  care  not  if  I  never 
^^be."  In  such  blood  bespattered  times, 
Chettle  could  and  did  write  ^^for  the  first 


80  WILLIAM  SHAKSPERE 

^^  (Marlowe)  whose  learning  I  reverence, 
'^and  at  the  perusing  of  Greene's  book 
'^(letter)  struck  out  what  in  conscience  I 
^  thought  he  in  some  displeasure  writ,  or 
^'had  it  been  true  yet  to  publish  it  was 
^intolerable."  Chettle's  conscience  must 
have  been  a  little  seared,  for  he  omitted 
to  strike  out  the  only  statement  of  fact 
contained  in  the  letter,  which  could  have 
imperiled  the  life  of  Marlowe !  The  letter 
evidences  the  fact  that  all  of  that  portion 
referring  to  Marlowe  w^as  not  garbled, 
and  that  there  was  not  any  intolerable 
something  struck  out,  but  instead,  as 
transcriber  for  the  pirate  publisher,  he 
retained  the  fuhninatino:  passage,  ^^had 
^^said  in  his  heart  there  is  no  God."  .Not- 
withstanding Chettle's  statement,  we  are 
of  the  opinion  that  the  passage  about 
Marlowe  was  printed  in  its  integrity. 

Chettle's  having  failed  to  omit  the 
charge  of  diabolical  atheism,  reveals  the 
strong  personal  antipathy  he  had  for 
Marlowe.  Few^  there  are  who  set  up  Mar- 
lowe as  claimant  for   Chettle's   apology, 


AND  ROBERT  GREENE  81 

and  fewer  still,  who  would  not  regard  him 
worthy  of  the  compliment,  '^factitious 
''grace  in  writing,"  and  whose  acquaint- 
ance Chettle  did  not  seek,  but  whose  fas- 
cinating personality  and  exquisite  feeling 
for  poetry  was  the  admiration  of  Dray- 
ton and  Chapman,  wdio  were  among  the 
noblest,  as  well  as  the  best  loved,  of  their 
time.  George  Chapman  was  among  the 
few  men  whom  Ben  Jonson  said  he  loved. 
Anthony  Wood  described  him  as  "  a  per- 
"son  of  most  reverend  aspect,  religious 
"and  tem^perate  qualities."  Chapman 
sought  conference  with  the  soul  of  Mar- 
lowe: 

"Of  his  free  soul  whose  living  subject 

stood 
"Up  to  the  chin  in  the  Pierian  flood." 

Henry  Chettle 's  act  of  placation  is  of- 
fered to  one  of  two  of  the  three  play- 
makers  addressed,  and  not  to  the  actor 
referred  to,  who  was  not  one  of  those  ad- 
dressed; therefore,  "upstart  crow"  could 
not  have  been  the  recipient  of  Chettle 's 


82  WILLIAM  SHAKSPERE 

apology,  or  placation,  in  whose  behalf 
(^'upstart  crow")  Chettle  retracts  noth- 
ing. The  following  reference  is  to  one  of 
the  offended  playmakers  pointed  at  in 
Greene's  address,  whom  Chettle  wishes  to 
placate,  ^'The  other  whonie  at  that  time 
^^I  did  not  so  mnch  spare  as  since  I  wish 
'^I  had— that  I  did  not  I  am  as  sorry  as 
"if  the  original  fault  had  been  my  fault 
'^because  myself  have  seen  his  demeanor 
'^no  less  civil  excellent  in  the  qualities  he 
^'professes;  besides,  divers  of  worship 
^'have  reported  his  uprightness  of  deal- 
^4ng,  which  argues  his  honesty  and  his 
^^factitious  grace  in  writing  that  ap- 
^^ proves  his  art."  With  the  votaries  of 
Shakspere,  however,  these  words  of  Chet- 
tle chime  with  their  dreams  of  fancy ;  for 
there  is  a  pre-inclination  and  a  predeter- 
mination to  read  Shakspere  into  them,  as 
if  the  words  of  Greene  and  Chettle  were 
not  accessible  to  all  inquirers— words 
that  can  be  made  to  comprehend  only  one 
of  the  two  playmakers  that  take  offense, 
who  must  be  one  of  the  three  (Marlowe, 


AND  ROBERT  GREENE  83 

Nash  and  Peele)  admonished  by  Greene, 
and  who  were  of  his  fellowship.  The 
reader,  after  studying  Elizabethan  liter- 
ature and  history,  is  content  to  believe 
that  the  least  celebrated  of  the  three 
playmakers  pointed  at  in  Greene's  ad- 
dress (Marlowe,  Nash  and  Peele),  stood 
high  enough  in  the  scale  of  literary  merit 
in  1592  to  be  the  recipient  of  Chettle's 
praise.  , 

The  word  ^'qualit}^,"  in  ^^  excellent  in 
^^the  quality  he  professes,"  is  by  the  fan- 
tastically inclined,  made  to  jdeld  a  con- 
venient connotation,  but  in  the  ordinary 
and  contextural  meaning  of  the  word, 
may  embrace  all  that  makes  or  helps  to 
make  any  person  such  as  he  is.  Are  these 
words  of  Chettle  written  in  1592  when  the 
theatre  was  lying  under  a  social  ban,  and 
the  actor  was  still  a  social  outcast,  identi- 
fiable with  a  vagabond  at  law,  or  with 
Thomas  Nash,  who  took  his  bachelor's 
degree  at  Cambridge  in  1585?  ^^In  the 
^^  autumn  of  1592,  Nash  was  the  guest  of 
'^Archbishop      Whitgift      at      Crogdon, 


84  WILLIAM  SHAKSPERE 

'' whither  the  household  had  retired  for 
^'fear  of  the  plague,  and,  as  the  official 
^  ^  antagonist  of  Martin  Marprelate  was 
^^constrained  to  keep  up  such  a  character 
^^as  w^ould  enable  divers  of  worship  to  re- 
'^port  his  uprightness  of  dealing,"  he  cer- 
tainly was  entitled  to  commendation  for 
his  ^^factitious  grace  in  writing."  The 
appropriation  of  the  complimentary  re- 
marks of  Chettle  on  Nash,  or  any  one  of 
the  three  playmakers  addressed,  to 
Shakspere,  who  was  not  one  of  those  ad- 
dressed, and  therefore,  could  not  have 
been  the  recipient  of  Chettle 's  apology, 
so  called,  is  one  of  the  fancies  in  wdiich 
critics  of  the  highest  reputation  have  in- 
dulged. There  is  nothing  equal  to  this 
in  all  the  annals  of  literature,  unless  it  be 
^'Cicero's  famous  letter  to  Lucretius,  in 
''which  he  asks  the  historian  to  lie  a  little 
''in  his  favor  in  recording  the  events  of 
"his  consulship,  for  the  sake  of  making 
"him  a  greater  man." 

Chettle  lost  no  time  in  transcribing  the 
posthumous  letter.    Doubts  as  to  "Groats 


AND  ROBERT  GREENE  85 

"Wovth  of  Wit"  were  entertained  at  the 
time  of  publication.  Some  suspected 
Nash  to  have  had  a  hand  in  the  author- 
ship, otliers  accused  Chettle.  Nash  did 
take  offense  at  the  report  that  it  was  his. 
Its  publication  caused  much  excitement 
and  the  rumor  went  abroad  that  the  pam- 
phlet was  a  forgery.  ^' Other  news  I  am 
^^ advised  of,"  writes  Nash,  in  an  epistle 
prefixed  to  the  second  edition  of  ^^Pierce- 
^^ penniless/'  ^Hhat  a  scald,  trivial,  lyin,^ 
'^ pamphlet  called  ^Greene's  Groats  Worth 
'^^of  Wit'  is  given  out  to  be  of  m}^  doing. 
^'God  never  have  care  of  my  soul,  but  ut- 
^^terly  renounce  me,  if  the  least  w^ord  or 
^^  syllable  in  it  proceeded  from  my  pen,  or 
if  I  were  any  way  privy  to  the  writing 
^^or  printing  of  it."  We  regard  these 
words  confirmatory  of  the  fact  that 
'^Groats  Worth  of  Wit"  is  not  a  work  of 
unquestioned  authenticity,  and,  further- 
more, that  Nash  did  not  believe  it  the 
Avork  of  Robert  Greene.  Prima  facie,  it 
is  spurious,  for  Nash  spoke  in  high  praise 
of  Greene's  writings.    He  neither  would. 


i  i 


86  WILLIAM  SHAKSPERE 

nor  could,  have  used  the  words  '^  scald,  tri- 
^Sial,  hdng"  of  a  genuine  work  of  Robert 
Greene,  whose  writings  w^ere  held  in  high 
favor  by  all  classes.  Nash  could  not  have 
taken  offense  at  the  allusion  of  Greene, 
which  was  rather  complimental,  though 
personal,  and  not  intended  for  publica- 
tion; but  it  did,  however,  contain  some 
slight  mixture  of  censure,— ^^  Sweet  boy, 
^^  might  I  advise  thee,  get  not  many  eni- 
^^mies  by  bitter  words.  Blame  not  schol- 
'^ars  vexed  with  sharp  lines  if  they  re- 
^^prove  thy  too  much  liberty  of  reproof." 
Nash  was  very  angry,  but  only  because 
Greene 's  letter  was  given  to  the  public  by 
Chettle,  who  felt  constrained  to  placate 
'Hhat  byting  satyrist,"  whose  railler}^  he 
had  reason  to  fear,  by  bearing  witness  to 
^^his  civil  demeanor  and  factitious  grace 
' '  in  writing. ' ' 

Votaries  of  Shakspere  may  take  their 
choice  of  one  of  the  three  addressed. 
Which  one  shall  be  named?  What  mat- 
ter it  to  them,  with  Shakspere  barred, 
whether    Nash,    Peele    or    Marlowe    be 


I 


AND  ROBERT  GREENE  87 

named,  the  least  of  whom  was  worthy  of 
Chettle  's  commendation  ? 

There  is  not  a  crumb  of  evidence  ad- 
duced for  Shakspere  as  a  putative  author 
of  plays  until  1598,  and  then  only  in  the 
variable  and  shadowy  Elizabethan  title 
page.  Chettle  term.s.  Greene  "the  only 
^^  comedian  of  a  vulgar  w^riter,"  meaning 
he  was  a  writer  in  the  vernacular  tongue 
or  common  language,  a  fact  which  proves 
Shakspere 's  nihility  as  playmaker  in 
1592.  Nov/  the  fact  of  the  matter  is  that 
this  ^^ lying  pamphlet,"  so  called  by  Nash, 
was  not  authored  by  Greene.  It  should 
be  called,  ^^  Chettle 's  Groats  Worth  of 
^^Wit,"  for  the  pamphlet  proper  is  from 
his  pen  or  some  other  hack  writer's.  The 
letter  alone  was  authored  by  Greene,  ad- 
dressed as  a  private  letter  to  three  fellow 
poets,  and  surreptitiously  procured  for 
Chettle  and  transcribed  by  him.  Chettle 
writes,/^!  had  only  in  the  copy  this 
'^  share— it  was  ill  written— licensed  it 
^'must  be,  ere  it  could  be  printed,  which 
^^  could  never  be  if  it  might  not  be  read. 


WILLIAM  SHAKSPERE 


^  ^  To  be  brief  I  writ  it  over  and  as  nearlj^ 
^  ^  as  I  could  follow  the  copy.  Only,  in  that 
^ better  I  put  something  out,  but  in  the 
^^  whole  book,  not  a  word  in,  for  I  protest 
'4t  was  all  Greene's,  not  mine,  nor  Mag- 
^^ter  Nash's,  as  some  unjustly  have  af- 
'' firmed." 

The  letter  and  pamphlet  both  in 
Greene's  handwriting  would  have  been 
the  best  possible  evidence  of  the  genuine- 
ness of  its  contents  and  legibility.  Chet- 
tle's  not  offering  in  evidence  the  original 
letter  is  strong  presumptive  proof  of  the 
commission  of  a  forgery.  He,  if  not  the 
chief  actor  in  the  offense,  was  an  acces- 
sory after  the  fact,  and  should,  in  his  ap- 
peal to  the  public  in  defense  of  his  repu- 
tation, have  brought  forward  the  pam- 
phlet itself,  embracing  the  whole  matter, 
for  examination  and  comparison;  for  we 
feel  satisfied  that  such  an  examination 
would  prove  that  the  celebrated  letter 
was  authored  and  in  the  handwriting  of 
Robert  Greene,  and  not  so  ill  written  that 
it  could  not  be  read  by  the  printers,  who 


AND  ROBERT  GREENE  89 

must  have  been  familiar  with  the  hand- 
writing of  the  largest  contributor  of  the 
prose  literature  of  his  day.  For  our- 
selves, what  we  have  adduced  convinces 
us  that  the  tract,  '^Groats  Worth  of 
Wit,"  was  authored  and  written  by  one 
of  Philip  Henslowe's  hacks,  presumedly, 
Henry  Chettle,  a  literary  dead  beat,  and 
an  indigent  of  many  imprisonments,  who 
was  always  importuning  the  old  play- 
broker  for  money.  Since  the  tract, 
^^ Groats  Worth  of  Wit,"  was  in  Chettle 's 
own  handwriting,  he  strove  to  fool  the 
jDrinters  by  transcribing  Greene's  letter 
and  binding  both  together,  through  that 
^^ disguised  hood"  to  fool  the  public. 
Abraham  Lincoln  is  reputed  to  have  said, 
^^  You  may  fool  all  the  people  som.e  of  the 
'^time,  and  some  of  the  people  all  the 
^^time,  but  you  cannot  fool  all  the  people 
^^all  of  the  time."  It  is  possible  that 
Chettle  may  have  fooled  some  of  the  peo- 
ple of  his  own  generation  some  of  the 
time,  but  in  later  times,  through  the  mis- 
apprehension of  his  quoted  words,  he  has 


90  WILLIAM  SHAKSPERE 

fooled  the  Sliaksperolators  all  of  the 
time.  Chettle,  however,  would  not  permit 
the  letter  to  come  forward  in  its  integrity 
and  speak  for  itself,  disclosing  the  nature 
of  the  intolerable  something .  ^'stroke 
''out,"  which  piques  our  curiosity,  but 
not  in  anticipation  of  any  of  those  inde- 
cencies that  taint  the  writings  of  Ben 
Jonson  and  the  work  of  many  writers  of 
that  age,  not  excepting  Shakespeare,  who 
is  also  amenable  in  no  slight  degree  to  the 
charge  of  the  same  coarseness  of  taste 
w^hich  excites  repulsion  in  the  feelings  of 
Leo  Tolstoy. 

The  fact  of  the  whole  matter  appears 
to  be  that  Henry  Chettle,  wishing  to 
profit  financially  b}^  the  great  commercial 
value  of  Robert  Greene's  name,  w^as  ac- 
cessory to  the  embezzlement  and  the  com- 
mission of  a  forgery,  and  was  the  silent 
beneficiary  of  the  fraud.  The  mutual 
connection  of  hack  writer  and  pirate  pub- 
lisher is  so  obvious  that  a  jury  of  discern- 
ing students,  with  the  exhibits,  presented 
together  with  the  presumptive  proofs  and 


AND  ROBERT  GREENE  91 

inferential  evidence  contextured  in  both 
letter  and  preface,  should  easily  confirm 
our  opinion  of  the  incredibleness  of  Chet- 
tle's  statements  contained  in  the  preface 
to  '^Kind  Hearts  Dreams."  The  evidence 
of  their  falsity  is,  prima-facie^  destitute 
of  credible  attestations. 

We  are  made  to  see,  in  our  survey  of 
the  age  of  Elizabeth,  much  that  is  in 
striking  contrast  with  the  spirit  and  ac- 
tivities of  our  time.  There  is  a  notable 
contrast  between  the  public  play  house  of 
those  days,  where  no  respectable  woman 
ever  appeared,  and  with  the  theatre  of 
our  day— the  rival  of  the  church  as  a 
moral  force.  In  the  elder  time  ''the  per- 
''manent  and  persistent  dishonor  at- 
''tached  to  the  stage,"  and  the  stigma 
attached  to  the  poets  who  wrote  for  the 
public  playhouse,  attached  in  like  man- 
ner to  the  regular  frequenters  of  public 
theatres,  the  majority  of  whom  could 
neither  read  nor  write,  but  belonged 
chiefl}^  to  the  vicious  and  idle  class  of  the 
population.     At  all  the  theatres,  accord- 


92  WILLIAM  SHAKSPERE 

ing  to  Malone,  it  appears  that  noise  and 
show  were  what  chiefl}^  attracted  an  au- 
dience in  spite  of  the  reputed  author. 
There  was  clamor  for  a  stage  reeking 
Avith  blood  and  anything  ministering  to 
their  unchaste  appetites.  The  spectacu- 
lar actor  and  clown  was  relatively  ad- 
vantaged, as  he  could  say  much  more 
than  was  set  down  for  him.  Kemp's  ex- 
temporizing powers  of  histrionic  buffoon- 
ery, gagging,  and  grimacing,  paid  the 
running  expenses  of  the  playhouse. 

'^It  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  actors 
^Hhen  occupied  an  inferior  position  in 
^^  society,  and  that  in  many  quarters  even 
"the  vocation  of  a  dramatic  writer  was 
'^considered  scarcely  respectable."  Ben 
Jonson's  letter  to  the  Earl  of  Salisbury, 
lets  us  see  very  clearly  that  he  regarded 
playwriting  as  a  degradation.  We  tran- 
scribe it  in  part  as  follows : 

^^I  am  here,  my  honored  Lord,  unex- 
^^amined  and  unheard,  committed  to  a 
^^vile  prison  and  with  m.e  a  gentleman 
*^  (whose  name  may  perhaps  have  come 


r 


AND  ROBERT  GREENE  93 

^Ho  your  Lordship),  one  Mr.  George 
^^  Chapman,  a  learned  and  honest  man. 
^^The  cause  (would  I  could  name  some 
^^  worthier  though  I  wish  we  had  known 
^^none  worthy  our  imprisonment)  (is 
^^the  words  irk-me  that  our  fortune 
'^hath  necessitated  us  to  so  despise  a 
^^ course)  a  play,  my  Lord—." 


We  see  how  keenly  Jonson  felt  the  dis- 
grace, not  on  account  of  the  charge  of  re- 
flecting on  some  one  in  a  play  in  which 
they  had  federated,  for  he  protested  his 
own  and  Chapman's  innocence,  but  he 
felt  that  their  degradation  lay  chiefly  in 
writing  stage  poetry,  for  drama-making 
was  regarded  as  a  degrading  kind  of  em- 
ployment, which  poets  accepted  who  were 
struggling  for  the  meanest  necessities  of 
life,  and  were  driven  by  poverty  to  their 
production,  and  to  the  slave-driving  play- 
brokers,  manv  of  whom  became  verv  rich 
by  making  the  flesh  and  blood  of  poor 
play-writers  their  maw. 

In  looking  into  Philip  Henslowe's  old 
note-book,  we  see  how  the  grasping  play- 


94  WILLIAM  SHAKSPERE 

brokers  of  the  olden  time  speculated  on 
the  poor  play-writers  necessities,  when 
plays  were  not  regarded  as  literature; 
when  the  most  strenuous  and  laborious 
of  dramatic  writers  for  the  theatre  could 
not  hope  to  gain  a  competence  by  the  pen 
alone,  but  wrote  only  for  bread;  when 
play-writers  were  in  tne  employ  of  the 
shareholding  actors,  as  hired  men;  and 
when  their  employers,  the  actors,  were 
social  outcasts  who,  in  order  to  escape  the 
penalty  for  the  infraction  of  the  law 
against  vagabondage,  were  nominally  re- 
tained by  some  nobleman.  In  further 
proof  of  the  degradation  which  was  at- 
tached to  the  production  of  dramatic 
composition,  '^when  Sir  Thomas  Bodley, 
^^  about  the  year  1600,  extended  and  re- 
'^  modeled  the  old  university  library  and 
^'gave  it  his  name,  he  declared  that  no 
^^such  riff-raff  as  play-books  should  ever 
^^find  admittance  to  it."  ^^When  Ben 
^^Jonson  treated  his  plays  as  literature 
'^by  publishing  them  in  1616  as  his  works, 
^^he   was    ridiculed   for  his   pretentions, 


AND  ROBERT  GREENE  95 

^^ while  Webster's  care  in  the  printing  of 
^'his  plays  laid  himself  open  to  the  charge 
^^of  pedantry." 


V 


What  Lord  Rosebery  says  of  Napoleon 
is  equally  true  of  the  author  of  ''Ham- 
"le.V^  and  ^VKing  Lear/'  ^^ Mankind  will 
^'always  delight  to  scrutinize  something 
'Hhat  indefinitely  raises  its  conception  of 
^4ts  own  powers  and  possibilities,  and 
^Svill  seek,  though  eternally  in  vain,  to 
^'penetrate  the  secrets  of  this  prodigious 
'intellect/'  and  it  is  to  Stratford-on- 
Avon  that  many  turn  for  the  final  glimpse 
of  what  Swinburne  calls  "the  most  tran- 
^^scendent  intelligence  that  ever  illumi- 
''nated  humanity."  William  Shakspere, 
the  third  child  and  eldest  son  (probably), 
of  John  Shakspere,  is  supposed  to  have 
been  born  at  a  place  on  the  chief  highway 
or  road  leading  from  London  to  Ireland, 
where  the  road  crosses  the  river  Avon. 
This  crossing  was  called  Street-ford  or 
Stratford.  This,  at  any  rate,  was  the 
place  of  his  baptism  in  1564,  as  is  evi- 
denced by  the  parish  register.   The  next 


AND  ROBERT  GREENE  97 

proven  fact  is  that  of  Ms  marriage  in 
1582,  when  he  was  little  more  than  eigh- 
teen years  old.  Before  this  event  nothing 
is  known  in  regard  to  him. 

John  Shakspere,  the  father  apparently 
of  William  Shakspere,  is  first  discovered 
and  described  as  a  resident  of  Henley 
Street,  where  onr  first  glimpse  is  had  of 
him  in  April,  1552.  In  that  year  he  was 
fined  the  sum  of  twelve  pence  for  a  breach 
of  the  municipal  sanitary  regulations. 
Nothing  is  known  in  regard  to  the  place 
of  his  birth  and  nurture,  nor  in  regard  to 
his  ancestry.  The  evidence  is,  prima- 
facie^  that  the  Shaksperes  were  of  the 
parvenu  class.  John  Shakspere  seems  to 
have  been  a  chapman,  trading  in  farmer's 
produce.  In  1557  he  married  Mary  Ar- 
den,  the  seventh  and  youngest  daughter 
of  Robert  Arden,  who  had  left  to  her 
fifty-three  acres  and  a  house,  called 
^^Ashbies"  at  Wilmecote.  He  had  also 
left  to  her  other  land  at  Wilmecote,  and 
an  interest  in  two  houses  at  Smitterfield. 


98  WILLIAM  SHAKSPERE 

This  step  gave  John  Shakspere  a  repu- 
tation among  his  neighbors  of  having 
married  an  heiress,  and  lie  was  not  slow 
to  take  advantage  of  it.  His  official 
career  commenced  at  once  by  his  election 
in  1557,  as  one  of  the  ale-tasters,  to  see  to 
the  quality  of  bread  and  ale ;  and  again  in 
1568  he  was  made  high  bailiff  of  Strat- 
ford. John  Shakspere  was  the  only  mem- 
ber of  the  Shakspere  family  who  was 
honored  with  civic  preferment  and  confi- 
dence, serving  the  corporation  for  the 
ninth  time  in  several  functions.  How- 
ever, the  time  of  his  declination  was  at 
hand,  for  in  the  autumn  of  1578  the 
wife's  property  at  Ashbies  was  mort- 
gaged for  forty  pounds.  The  money  sub- 
sequently tendered  in  repayment  of  the 
loan  was  refused  until  other  sums  due  to 
the  same  creditor  were  repaid.  John 
Shakspere  was  deprived  of  his  alderman- 
ship September  6,  1580,  because  he  did 
not  come  to  the  hall  when  notified.  On 
March  29,  he  produced  a  writ  of  habeas 
corpus,  which    shows    he    had   been  in 


AND  ROBERT  GREENE  99 

prison  for  debt.  Notwithstanding  his  in- 
ability to  read  and  write,  he  liad  more  or 
less  capacity  for  official  business,  but  so 
managed  his  private  affairs  as  to  wreck 
his  own  and  his  wife's  fortune. 

At  the  tim.e  of  the  habeas  corpus  mat- 
ter William  Shakspere  was  thirteen 
years  old.  ^^In  all  probability/'  says  his 
biographer,  "the  lad  was  removed  from 
^^  school,  his  father  requiring  his  assist- 
^^ance."  There  was  a  grammar  school  in 
Stratford  which  was  reconstructed  on  a 
medieval  foundation  by  Edward  VI, 
though  the  first  English  grammar  was 
not  published  until  1586.  This  w^as  after 
Shakespere  had  finished  his  education. 
'^No  Stratford  record  nor  Stratford  tra- 
^^dition  says  that  Shakspere  attended  the 
^'Stratford  grammar  school."  But,  had 
the  waning  fortune  of  his  father  made  it 
possible,  he  might  have  been  a  student 
there  from  his  seventh  year— the  prob- 
able age  of  admission— until  his  improvi- 
dent marriage-«when  little  more  than  eigh- 
teen and  a  half  years  old.     However,    a 


100  WILLIAM  SHAKSPERE 

provincial  grammar  school  is  a  conven- 
ient place  for  the  lad  about  whose  activi- 
ties we  know  nothing,  and  whose  educa- 
tion is  made  to  impinge  on  conjecture  and 
fanciful  might-have-been. 

We  are  told  that  Shakspere  must  have 
been  sent  to  the  free  school  at  Stratford, 
as  his  parents  and  all  the  relatives  were 
unlearned  persons,  and  there  was  no 
other  public  education  available;  never- 
theless, it  was  the  practice  of  that  age  to 
teach  the  boy  no  more  than  his  father 
knew.  One  thing  is  certain,  that  the 
scholastic  awakening  in  the  Shakspere 
family  was  of  short  duration,  for  it  began 
and  ended  with  William  Shakspere.  His 
3'oungest  daughter,  Judith,  was  as  illiter- 
ate as  were  her  grandparents.  She  could 
not  even  write  her  name,  although  her 
father  at  the  time  of  her  school  age  had 
become  wealthy,  and  his  eldest  daughter 
^^the  little  premature  Susanna,"  as  De 
Quincy  calls  her,  could  barety  scrawl  her 
name,  being  unable  to  identify  her  hus- 
band's (Dr.  Hall)  handwriting,  which  no 


AND  ROBERT  GREENE  101 

one  but  an  illiterate  could  mistake.  Her 
contention  with  the  army  surgeon,  Dr. 
James  Cook,  respecting  her  husband's 
manuscripts,  is  proof  that  William 
Shakspere  was  true  to  his  antecedents  by 
conferring  illiteracy  upon  his  daughters. 
The  Shakspere  of  Stratford-on-Avon  was 
not  exceptionally  liberal  and  broad 
minded  in  the  matter  of  education  in  con- 
trast with  many  of  his  contemporaries, 
notably  Richard  Mulcaster,  (1531-1611), 
who  says  that  "the  girl  should  be  as  well 
^'educated  as  her  brother,"  while  the  real 
author  of  the  immortal  plays  had  also 
written,  ^^ Ignorance  is  the  curse  of  God," 
and,  ^^  There   is   no   darkness  but  ignor- 


^'ance." 


It  was  not  the  least  of  John  Shaks- 
pere's  misfortunes  that  in  November, 
1582,  his  eldest  son,  William,  added  to  his 
embarrassments,  by  premature  and 
forced  marriage.  It  is  the  practice  of 
Shakespere's  biographers  to  pass  hur- 
riedly over  this  event  in  the  young  man's 
life,  for  there  is  nothing  commendable  in 


102  WILLIAM  SHAKSPERE 

liis  marital  relations.  There  is  expressed 
in  it  irregularity  of  conduct  and  probable 
desertion  on  his  part;  pressure  was 
brought  to  bear  on  the  young  man  by  his 
wife's  relations,  and  he  was  forced  to 
marry  the  woman  whom  he  had  wronged. 
Who  can  believe  that  their  marriage  was 
a  happy  one,  wdien  the  only  written  words 
contained  in  his  will  are  not  words  ex- 
pressive of  connubial  endearment,  such 
as  ' '  dear  wife  "  or  ^  ^  sweet  wife, ' '  but ' '  my 
^^wife?"  He  had  forgotten  her,  but  by 
an  interlineation  in  the  final  draft,  she 
received  his  second  best  bed  with  its  fur- 
niture. This  was  the  sole  bequest  made 
to  her. 

We  are  by  no  means  sure  of  the  iden- 
tity of  his  wife.  We  do  not  know  that 
she  and  Shakespere  ever  w^ent  through 
the  actual  ceremony  of  marriage,  unless 
her  identity  is  traceable  through  Anne 
Wateley,  as  a  regular  license  was  issued 
for  the  marriage  of  William  Shaxpere 
and  Anne  Wateley  of  Temple  Grafton, 
November  27,  1583.    Richard  Hathaway, 


AND  ROBERT  GREENE  103 

the  reputed  father  of  Shakspere's  wife, 
Anne,  in  his  will  dated  September  1, 
1581,  bequeathed  his  property  to  seven 
children,  his  daughters  being  Catherin, 
Margaret  and  Agnes.  No  Anne  was  men- 
tioned. The  first  published  notice  of  the 
name  of  William  Shakspere's  (supposed) 
wife  appears  in  Rowe's  ^^Life  of  Shakes- 
^^pere"  (1709),  wherein  it  is  stated  that 
she  ^Svas  the  daughter  of  one  Hathaway 
'^said  to  have  been  a  substantial  yeoman 
'Mn  the  neighborhood  of  Stratford." 
This  was  all  that  Betterton,  the  actor 
Rowe's  informant,  could  learn  at  the 
time  of  his  visit  to  Stratford-on-Avon. 
The  exact  time  of  this  visit  is  unknown, 
but  it  was  probably  about  the  year  1690. 
This  lack  of  knowledge  in  regard  to  the 
Hathaways  shows  that  the  locality  of 
Anne  Hathaway 's  residence,  or  that  of 
her  parents,  was  not  known  at  Stratford. 
The  house  at  Shottery,  now  known  as 
Anne  Hathaway 's  cottage,  and  reached 
from  Stratford  by  fieldpaths,  may  have 
been  the  home  of  Anne  Hathaway,  wife 


104  WILLIAM  SHAKSPERE 

of  William  Sliakspere,  before  his  mar- 
riage, but  of  this  there  is  no  proof. 

Shakspere  was  married  under  the 
name  ^^Shagspere,"  but  the  place  of  mar- 
riage is  unknown^  as  his  place  of  resi- 
dence is  not  mentioned  in  the  bond.  In 
the  registry  of  the  bishop  of  the  diocese 
(Worcester)  is  contained  a  deed  wherein 
Sandells  and  Richardson,  husbandmen  of 
Stratford,  bound  themselves  in  the  bish- 
op's consistory  court  on  November  28, 
1582,  as  a  surety  for  forty  pounds,  to  free 
the  bishop  of  all  liability  should  any  law- 
ful impediment,  by  reason  of  any  precon- 
tract, or  consanguinity,  be  subsequently 
disclosed  to  imperil  the  validity  of  the 
contemplated  marriage  of  William 
Shakspere  with  Anne  Hathaway.  Pro- 
vided, that  Anne  obtained  the  consent  of 
her  friends,  the  marriage  might  proceed 
with  at  once  proclaiming  the  bans  of  mat- 
rimony. The  wording  of  the  bond  shows 
that,  despite  the  fact  that  the  bridegroom 
was  a  minor  by  nearly  three  years,  the 
consent  of  his  parents  was  neither  called 


AND  ROBERT  GREENE  105 

for,  nor  obtained,  though  necessary  ''for 
''strictly  regular  procedure."  Sandells 
and  Richardson,  representing  the  lady's 
family,  ignored  the  bridegroom's  family 
completely.  In  having  secured  the  deed, 
they  forced  Shakspere  to  marry  their 
friend's  daughter  in  order  to  save  her 
reputation.  Soon  afterwards— within 
six  m^onths— a  daughter  was  born.  More- 
over, the  whole  circumstances  of  the  case 
render  it  highly  probable  that  Shakspere 
had  no  thought  of  marriage,  for  the  wan- 
ing fortune  of  his  father  had  made  him 
acquainted  with  the  "cares  of  bread." 
He  was  a  penniless  youth,  not  yet  of  age, 
having  neither  trade,  nor  means  of  liveli- 
hood, and  was  forced  by  her  friends  into 
marrying  her— a  w^oman  eight  years 
older  than  himself.  In  1585  she  pre- 
sented him  with  twins. 

When  he  left  Stratford  for  London  we 
do  not  know  positively,  but  the  advent  of 
the  twins  is  the  approximate  date  of  the 
j^outh's  Hegira.  He  lived  apart  from  his 
wife   for   more   than    tw^enty-five    years. 


106  WILLIAM  SHAKSiPERE 

The  breath  of  slander  never  touched  the 
good  name  of  Anne  (or  Agnes),  the  neg- 
lected wife  of  William  Shakspere.  There 
is  prima-facie  evidence  that  the  play- 
broker's  wife  fared  in  his  absence  no  bet- 
ter than  his  father  and  mother,  who,  dy- 
ing intestate  in  1601  and  1608,  respec- 
tively, were  buried  somewhere  by  the 
Stratford  church,  but  there  is  no  trace  of 
any  sepulchral  monument,  or  memorial. 
If  anything  of  the  kind  had  been  set  up 
by  their  wealthy  son,  William  Shakspere, 
it  would  certainly  have  been  found  by 
someone.  The  only  contemporary  men- 
tion made  of  the  wife  of  Shakspere,  be- 
tween her  marriage  in  1582  and  her  hus- 
band's death  in  1616,  was  as  the  borrow^er, 
at  an  unascertained  date,  of  forty  shil- 
lings from  Thomas  Whittington,  who  had 
formerly  been  her  father's  shepherd.  The 
money  was  unpaid  when  Whittington 
died  in  1601,  and  his  executor  was  di- 
rected to  recover  the  sum  from  Shakspere 
and  distribute  it  among  the  poor  of  Strat- 
ford.   There  is  disclosed  in  this  pecuniary 


AND  ROBERT  GREENE  107 

transaction,  coupled  with  the  slight  men- 
tion of  her  in  the  will  and  the  barring  of 
her  dower,  prima  facie  evidence  of  Wil- 
liam Shakspere's  indifference  to,  and 
neglect  of,  if  not  dislike  for,  his  wife.  All 
this  is  in  striking  contrast  with  the  con- 
duct of  Sir  Thomas  Lucy,  whom  the  biog- 
raphers of  Shakespere  have  attempted  to 
disparage,  and  whose  endearment  for  his 
wife  is  so  feelingly  expressed  in  his  will. 
And,  in  contrast  also,  is  the  conduct  of 
Edward  Alleyn,  famous  as  an  actor,  and 
as  the  founder  of  Dulwich  College,  who 
lived  with  his  wife  in  London,  and  called 
her  ^^ sweet  mouse." 

The  tangibility  of  this  Shakspere  of 
Stratford-on-Avon  is  very  much  in  evi- 
dence along  pecuniary  lines,  especially  as 
money  lender,  land-owner,  speculator  and 
litigant.  In  1597  he  bought  New  Place 
in  Stratford  for  sixty  pounds ;  also  men- 
tioned as  a  holder  of  grain  at  Stratford 
X  quarters.  The  following  entry  is  in 
Chamberlain's  accounts  at  Stratford  in 
1598:   '^Paid   to   Mr.  Shaxpere   for   one 


108  WILLIAM  SHAKSPLRE 

^4ode  of  stone  xd;"  in  the  same  year 
Ricliard  Quiney  Avrote  to  William 
Sliakspere  for  a  loan  of  thirty  or  forty 
pounds;  in  1599  William  Sliakspere  was 
taken  into  the  new  Globe  Theatre  Com- 
pany as  partner;  in  1602  Shakspere 
bought  one  hundred  seven  acres  of  arable 
land  at  Stratford  for  three  hundred  two 
pounds  (in  his  absence  the  conveyance 
was  given  over  to  his  brother,  Gilbert)  ; 
in  the  same  year  he  bought  a  house  with 
barns,  orchards,  and  gardens,  from  Her- 
cules Underhill  for  sixty  pounds;  also  a 
cottage  close  to  his  house,  New  Place ;  in 
1605  Shakspere  bought  the  thirty-two- 
year  lease  of  half  Stratford  tithes  for 
four  hundred  forty  pounds;  in  1613 
Shakspere  bought  a  house  near  Black- 
friars'  Theatre  for  one  hundred  and  forty 
pounds,  and  mortgaged  it  next  day  for 
sixty  pounds ;  in  1612  Shakspere  is  men- 
tioned in  a  law  suit  brought  before  Lord 
Ellsimore  about  Stratford  tithes ;  in  1611 
Hamnet,  his  onlv  son,  died  at  Stratford 
at  the  age  of  eleven  and  half  years.    The 


AND  ROBERT  GREENE  109 

father,  however,  set  up  no  stone  to   tell 
where  the  bo)^  lay. 

In  the  autumn  of  the  year  1614  Shaks- 
13ere  became  implicated  wdth  the  land- 
owners, William  Combe  and  Arthur  Man  ■ 
nering,  in  the  conspiracy  to  enclose  the 
common  field  in  the  vicinity  of  Stratford. 
The  success  of  this  rapacious  scheme 
would  have  advantaged  Shakspere  in  his 
freehold  interest,  but  might  have  affected 
adversely  his  interest  in  the  tithes,  so  he 
secured  himself  against  all  possible  loss 
by  obtaining  from  Riplingham,  Combe's 
agent,  in  October^  1614,  a  deed  of  indem- 
nification ;  then,  in  the  spirit  of  his  agree- 
ment, he  acted  in  unison  with  the  tw^o 
greedy  land-sharks  to  rob  the  poor  people 
of  their  ancient  rights  of  pasturage.  The 
unholy  coalition  caused  great  excitement. 
The  humble  citizens  of  Stratford  were 
thoroughly  aroused,  and  the  town  corpor- 
ation put  up  a  sharp  and  vigorous  oppo- 
sition to  the  scheme,  for  enclosure  would 
have  caused  decay  of  tillage,  idleness, 
penury,  depopulation,  and  the  subversion 


no  WILLIAM  SHAKSPERE 

of  homes.  Happily,  the  three  greedy  cor- 
morants Combe,  Mannering  and  Shaks- 
pere  failed  in  their  efforts  and  the  com- 
mon field  was  unenclosed. 

Shakspere  is  thought  to  have  been 
penurious  for  his  litigious  strivings  point 
in  that  direction,  but  this  feature  of  his 
character  was  not  disclosed  in  1596  and 
1599,  when  he  sought  to  have  his  family 
enrolled  among  the  gentry,  as  shown  by 
his  extravagance  in  bribing  the  officers 
of  the  Herald  College  to  issue  a  grant  of 
arms  to  his  father,  "a  transaction  which 
^ involved,"  says  Dr.  Farmer,  ^^the  false- 
^^hood  and  venality  of  the  father,  the  son 
^^and  two  kings-at-arms,  and  did  not  es- 
^^cape  protest,  for  if  ever  a  coat  was  cut 
'^from  whole  cloth  we  may  be  sure  that 
^Hhis  coat-of-arms  was  the  one."  Shaks- 
pere him^self  was  not  in  a  position  to 
apply  for  a  coat-of-arms— ^^a  player  stood 
^'far  too  low  in  the  social  scale  for  the 
'' cognizance  of  heraldry."  Nevertheless, 
recent  writers  on  the  subject  of  Shake- 
speare stamp  this  bogus  coat-of-arms  on 


AND  ROBERT  GREENE  111 

the  covers  of  their  books.  We  know  that 
the  Shaksperes  did  not  belong  to  the 
Armigerous  part  of  the  population,  and 
that  they  stood  somewhat  lower  in  the 
social  scale  than  either  the  Halls  or 
Quineys,  who  bore  marital  relations  with 
them. 

Shakspere's  son-in-law,  John  Hall,  was 
a  master  of  arts  and  an  eminent  phy- 
sician. He  was  summoned  more  than 
once  to  attend  the  Earl  and  Countess  of 
Northampton  at  Ludlow  Castle.  He  was 
of  the  French  Court  School,  and  was 
opposed  to  the  indiscriminate  process  of 
bleeding.  On  June  5,  1607,  Dr.  Hall  was 
married  at  Stratford-on-Avon  to  Shak- 
spere's  eldest  daughter,  Susanna.  Strat- 
ford then  contained  about  fifteen  hun- 
dred inhabitants.  One  hundred  sixty-two 
3^ears  later,  Garrick  gave  his  unsavory 
description  of  Stratford-on-Avon  as  ^'tlie 
'^  most  dirty,  unseemly,  ill-paved,  wretch- 
^^ed-looking  town  in  all  Britain."  Cot- 
tages of  that  day  in  Stratford  consisted 
of  mud  walls  and   thatched   roofs.     '^At 


112  WILLIAM  SHAKSPERE 

^Hliis  period  and  for  many  generations 
^^ afterwards  the  sanitary  conditions  of 
'^tlie  thoroughfares  of  Stratford-on-Avon 
^^were  simply  terrible." 

On  February  10,  1616,  Thomas  Quiney, 
a  vintner,  and  also  an  accomplished 
scholar  and  penman,  was  married  at 
Stratford  church  to  Judith,  Shakspere's 
younger  daughter,  who  could  neither  read 
nor  write.  The  marriage  ceremony  took 
place  without  a  license  or  proclaiming  the 
bans.  For  this  breach  of  ecclesiastical 
procedure  both  the  parties  were  sum- 
m^oned  to  the  court  at  Worcester  and 
threatened  with  excommunication.  When 
the  fortune  hunter  goes  forth  to  woe,  and 
is  determined  to  win,  he  is  content  to 
wade  through  reeking  refuse  and  muck- 
heaps  to  marry  a  rich  heiress  and  does 
not  much  care  if  her  histrionic  father  by 
XXXIX  Elizabeth  were  a  vagabond. 

If  ^' there  is  a  soul  of  truth  in  things 
^'erroneous,"  so  there  ma}^  be  a  soul  of 
truth  in  the  creditableness  of  the  Shak- 
spere  traditions,  for  in  them  are  revealed 


AND  ROBERT  GREENE  113 

the  environment  in  which  they  had  their 
genesis,  and  the  character  of  the  inventor 
or  fabricator.  All  of  the  traditions  are 
comparatively  recent  or  modern,  and 
were  made  current  by  people  who  were, 
with  few  exceptions,  coarse  and  densely 
ignorant.  These  apocryphal  accounts 
serve  to  show  also  how  little  educated 
people  knew,  or  cared,  about  writing  with 
literary  or  historical  accuracy  when 
Shakspere  was  the  subject.  Unfortu- 
nately all  of  the  traditions  about  Shak- 
spere  are  of  a  degrading  character. 

The  poaching  escapade  of  his  having 
robbed  a  park  is  one  of  the  invented 
stories  of  fancy-mongers.  There  is  very 
little  likelihood  that  the  young  husband, 
with  a  wife  and  three  babies  to  support, 
would  voluntarily  place  himself  in  a  posi- 
tion where  he  would  have  to  flee  from 
Sir  Thomas  Lucy's  prosecution;  thereby 
degrading  the  lowermost  rank  of  life  by 
bringing  disgrace  upon  himself,  his  wife 
and  children,  while  his  parents  in  strait- 
ened   circumstances    were    struggling   to 


114  •  WILLIAM  SHAKSPERE 

keep  the  wolf  from  the  door.  The  records 
show  that  Sir  Thomas  Lucy  had  no  park 
either  at  Charlecote  or  Pulbroke,  still  the 
Lucys  of  a  later  day  were  not  anxious  to 
lose  the  honor  of  having  spanked  Shak- 
spere  for  poaching  on  the  ancestral  pre- 
serves. 

England  was  called  in  those  clays  ^^The 
^^ toper's  paradise,"  and  tradition  informs 
us  that  Shakspere  was  one  of  the  Bedford 
topers.  However,  we  should  not  infer 
from  this  that  William  Shakspere,  a  firm 
man  of  business,  was  at  any  time  a 
drunken  sot.  The  onty  story  recorded 
during  Shakspere 's  life  is  contained  in 
John  Manningham's  note-book.  It  savors 
strongly  of  the  tavern,  the  diarist  crimi- 
nating Shakspere 's  morals.  This  entry 
was  made  on  March  13,  1601,  the  refer- 
ence being  to  player  Shakspere. 

No  wonder  that  such  eminent  votaries 
of  Shakspere  as  Stevens,  Hallam,  Dyce 
and  Emerson  are  disappointed  and  per- 
plexed, for,  while  the  record  concerning 
the  life  of  the  player,  money-lender,  land- 


AND  ROBERT  GREENE  115 

owner,  play-broker,  speculator  and  liti- 
gant are  ample,  they  disclose  nothing  of 
a  literary  character ;  but  the  pecuniary 
litigation  evidence,  growing  out  of  Shak- 
spere's  devotion  to  money-getting  in  Lon- 
don and  Stratford,  does  unfold  his  true 
life  and  character.  The  records  do  not 
furnish -a  single  instance  of  friendship, 
kindness  or  generosity,  but  upon  the  de- 
linquent borrow^er  of  money  he  rigidly 
evoked  the  law,  which  gave  a  generous 
advantage  to  the  creditor,  and  its  vile 
prison  to  the  debtor. 

In  1600  Shakspere  brought  action 
against  John  Clayton  for  seven  pounds 
and  got  judgment  in  his  favor.  He  sued 
Philip  Rogers,  a  neighbor  in  Stratford 
Court,  for  one  pound,  fifteen  shillings 
and  six  pence  due  for  malt  sold,  and  two 
shillings  loaned.  In  August,  1608,  Shak- 
spere prosecuted  John  Addenbroke  to  re- 
cover a  debt  of  six  pounds.  He  prose- 
cuted this  last  suit  for  a  couple  of  years 
until  he  got'  the  defendant  into  prison. 
The  prisoner  was  bailed  out  by  Horneby. 


116  WILLIAM  SHAKSPERE 

Addenbroke,  running  away,  escaped  from 
the  clutches  of  his  tormentor,  who  then 
bore  down  on  his  security,  Horneby. 

^^The  pursuit  of  an  impoverished  man 
'^for  the  sake  of  imprisoning  him,  and 
^'depriving  him  both  of  the  power  of  pay- 
^'ing  his  debts  and  supporting  his  family, 
^^ grate  upon  our  feelings,"  says  Richard 
Grant  White,  ^^and,"  adds  this  eminent 
Shakspearean,  ^^  we  hunger  and  we  receive 
'Hhese  husks,  w^e  open  our  mouths  for 
'^food  and  we  break  our  teeth  against 
'Hhese  stones."  We  may  be  sure  that 
there  was  left  in  the  impoverished  home 
of  John  Addenbroke  little  more  palatable 
than  husks  and  stones,  when  the  father 
fled  to  escape  from  the  clutches  of  his  in- 
sistent creditor,  William  Shakspere  of 
Stratford. 

The  paltry  suits  he  brought  to  recover 
debts  do  not  tend  to  disclose  this  Shak- 
spere's  '^ radiant  temperament,"  or  fit 
him  to  receive  the  adjective,  ^'gentle, 
except  in  contumely  for  his  claim  to 
gentility.  It  is  not  known  that  Shakspere 


jj 


AND  ROBERT  GREENE  117 

ever  gave  liospitality  to  the  necessities  of 
the  poor  of  his  native  shire,  for  whom,  it 
appears,  there  beat  no  pulse  of  tender- 
ness. A  man  of  scanty  sensibilities  he 
mnst  have  been.  The  poor  working  peo- 
ple of  Stratford,  we  may  be  sure,  shed 
no  tear  at  this  Shakspere's  departure 
from  the  world. 

We  do  not  envy  the  man,  who  can  re- 
gard these  harsh  pecuniary  practices  in 
this  Shakspere,  as  commendable  traits  of 
his  worldly  wisdom,  for  he  was  shrewd 
in  monej^  matters,  and  could  have  in- 
vested his  mone}^  in  London  and  Strat- 
ford so  as  not  to  have  brought  sorrow 
and  distress  upon  his  poor  neighbors. 
These  matters  are  small  in  themselves, 
but  they  suggest  a  good  deal,  for  the}^ 
bear  witness  to  sorrow-stricken  mothers, 
hungry  children  and  fathers  in  loathsome 
prisons,  powerless  to  provide  food, 
warmth  and  light  for  the  home.  The 
diary,  or  note-book,  of  Philip  Henslowe, 
the  theatrical  manager  and  play-broker, 
shows  that  Henslowe  was  himself  a  very 


118  WILLIAM  SHAKSPERE 

penurious  and  grasping  man,  who,  taking 
advantage  of  starving  play-makers'  neces- 
sities, became  very  wealthy.  William 
Shakspere.  of  Stratford-on-Avon,  as  a 
theatrical  manager,  became  rich  also,  but 
his  note-book  has  not  been  preserved,  so 
nothing  is  known  of  his  business  methods 
in  dealing  with  the  poor  play-makers ;  but 
the  literary  antiquarians,  by  ramsacking 
corporations'  records  and  other  public 
archives,  have  proven  that  Shakspere 
was  very  much  such  a  man  as  the  old 
pawnbroker  and  play-broker,  Philip 
Henslowe,  of  a  rival  house. 

The  biographers  should  record  these 
facts,  and  not  strive  to  shun  them,  for  the 
literary  antiquaries  have  unearthed  and 
brought  them  forward,  and  they  tell  the 
true  story  of  Shakspere 's  life,  though  we 
do  not  linger  lovingly  over  them,  for,  like 
Hallam,  ^'we  as  little  feel  the  power  of 
^identifying  the  young  man  who  came  up 
^'from  Stratford,  was  afterward  an  in- 
^^ different  plaj^er  in  a  London  theatre, 
V^and  retired  to  his  native  place  in  middle 


AND  ROBERT  GREENE  119 

^^life,  with  the  author  of  ^Macbeth'  and 
"  ^Lear/  "  for  the  Stratford  records  are 
as  barren  of  literarj^  matter  as  the  lodg- 
ings in  Silver  street,  London.  Not  a 
crumb  for  the  literary  biographer  in 
either  place! 

Professor  Wallace  has  added  another 
non-literary  document  in  the  matter  of 
Shakspere's  deposition  in  the  case  of  Bel- 
lot  vs.  Mount  joy,  which  he  discovered  in 
the  public  record  office,  but  it  in  no  way 
contributes  to  a  literary  biography.  The 
truth  is  that,  with  all  their  industry,  the 
antiquarians  have  in  this  regard  not 
brought  to  light  a  single  proven  fact  to 
sustain  the  claim  that  this  Sliakespere 
was  either  the  author  of  poems  or  plays. 
This  bit  of  new  knowledge  gives  us  a 
glimpse  of  this  William  Shakspere  as  an 
evasive  witness,  having  a  conveniently 
short  memory.  These  depositions  dis- 
close his  intermediation  in  the  matter  of 
making  two  hearts  happy,  but  not  the 
faintest  glimpse  of  the  author  of  poems 
or  plays.    When  the  claim  of  authorship 


120  WILLIAM  SHAKSPERE 

is  challenged,  new  particulars  of  the  life 
of  Shakspere,  such  as  this  and  others  that 
have  been  unearthed  by  antiquarians, 
whether  in  the  public  record  office  or  cor- 
poration archives,  are  alike  worthless  so 
far  as  establishing  the  poet  Shakspere's 
identity.  They  fail  to  confirm  the  iden- 
tity of  the  actor  Shakspere  with  the 
author  of  the  plays  and  poems  that  are 
associated  with  his  name.  There  are  no 
family  traditions,  no  books,  manuscripts, 
or  letters,  addressed  to  him,  or  by  him, 
to  poet,  peer  or  peasant.  The  credible 
evidence  supplied  by  contemporaneous,  or 
antiquarian,  research  do  not  identify  the 
player  and  landowner  with  the  author  of 
^^ Hamlet,"  ^^Lear"  and  ^^ Othello." 

Our  belief  in  the  pseudonymity  of  the 
author  of  the  poems  and  plays,  called 
Shakespeare,  is  strengthened  hy  the  ab- 
sence of  verse  commemorative  of  concur- 
rent events,  such  as  the  strivings  of  his 
boldest  countrymen  in  the  great  Eliza- 
bethan age.  There  is,  from  his  pen, 
neither  word  of  cheer,  nor  sympathy,  with 


AND  ROBERT  GREENE  121 

the  daring  and  suffering  warriors  and  ad- 
A^enturers  of  that  time,  although  his  con- 
temporaries versified  eulogies  to  the 
heroes  of  those  days  for  their  stirring 
deeds.  There  is,  in  the  poems  and  plays, 
no  elegiac  lay  in  memory  of  Elizabeth, 
^Hhe  glorious  daughter  of  the  illustrious 
^^ Henry,"  as  Robert  Greene  calls  her,  nor 
is  there  one  line  of  mourning  verse  at  the 
death  of  Prince  Henry,  the  noblest  among 
the  children  of  the  kins',  by  a  writer  who 
was  always  a  strenuous  and  consistent 
supporter  of  prerogative  against  the  con- 
ception of  freedom.  This  is  another  evi- 
dence of  the  secrecy  maintained  as  to  the 
authorship  of  the  poems  and  plays.  We 
cannot  discover  a  single  laudatory  poem 
or  commendatory  verse,  or  a  line  of  praise 
of  any  publication,  or  writer  of  his  time. 
All  this  is  in  contrast  with  his  contem- 
poraries, whose  personalities  are  identifi- 
able with  their  literary  work,  and,  so 
liberal  of  commendation  were  they,  that 
they  literally  showered  commendatory 
verses  on  literary  works  of  merit,  or  those 


122  WILLIAM  SHAKSPERE 

thought  to  have  merit.  Of  these,  thirty- 
five  were  bestowed  on  Fletcher,  a  score 
or  more  on  Beaumont,  Chapman  and 
Ford,  while  Massinger  received  nineteen. 
Ben  Jonson's  published  works  contain 
thirty-seven  pieces  of  commendation.  His 
Roman  tragedy,  '^Sejanus,"  was  acclaim- 
ed by  ten  contemporary  poets.  In  praise 
of  his  comedy,  '^Volpone,"  There  are 
seven  poems.  The  versified  compliments 
bestowed  on  him  by  his  fellow  craftsmen 
embrace  many  of  the  most  celebrated 
names  antecedent  to  his  death,  which  oc- 
curred in  1637.  Early  in  1638  a  collection 
of  some  thirty  elegies  were  published  un- 
der the  title  of  ^^Jonsonus  Virbius,"  or 
^^The  Memory  of  Ben  Jonson,"  in  which 
nearly  all  the  leading  poets  of  the  day, 
except  Milton,  took  part. 

It  must  appear  strange  to  the  votaries 
of  Shakspere  that  Jonson  should  have  re- 
ceived so  many  crowns  of  mourning 
verse,  while  for  Shakspere  of  Stratford- 
on-Avon,  the  reputed  author  of  ^^  Ham- 
let,"   ^^Lear"    and    ^^  Macbeth,"     there 


AND  ROBERT  GREENE  123 

wailed  no  dirge.  Not  a  single  commen- 
datory verse  was  bestowed  by  a  contem- 
porary poet  antecedent  to  his  death,  nor 
was  a  single  elegaic  poem  written  of  him 
in  the  year  of  his  death,  1616.  Already 
in  that  fatal  year  there  had  been  mourn- 
ing for  Francis  Beaumont,  who  received 
immediate  posthumous  honors  by  many 
poets,  in  memorial  odes,  sighing  forth  the 
requiem  to  his  name  in  mournful  elegy. 

Eight  and  forty  days  after  the  death  of 
Francis  Beaumont,  all  that  was  mortal  of 
William  Shakspere  of  Stratford-on-Avon 
was  buried  in  the  chancel  of  his  parish 
church,  in  which,  as  part  owner  of  the 
tithes  and  consequently  one  of  the  lay 
rectors,  he  had  the  right  of  interment. 
Over  the  spot  where  his  body  was  laid, 
there  was  placed  a  slab  with  the  inscrip- 
tion imprecating  a  curse  on  the  man  who 
should  disturb  his  bones, 

^^Good  friend,  for  Jesus  sake  forbeare 
^'To  digg  the  dust  enclosed  here 
'^  Bless  be  ye  man  yt  spares  this  stown 
^^And  curst  be  he  yt  moves  my  bones." 


124  WILLIAM  SHAKSPERE 

This  rude,  absurd  and  ignorant  epitaph 
has  given  much  trouble  to  writers  on  the 
subject  of  Shakespeare.  The  usual  ex- 
planation of  the  threat  is  given  that  the 
Puritans  thought  that  the  church  had 
been  profaned  by  the  ashes  of  an  actor. 
These  ignorant  words  could  not  have 
been  written  as  a  deterrent  to  the  Puri- 
tans, for  they  did  not  belong  to  the 
ignorant  section  of  the  population,  but  to 
the  middle  class,  nor  would  they  have 
been  deterred  from  invading  Shakspere's 
tomb  by  the  superstitious  fear  of  a  threat 
contained  in  doggerel  verse  cut  on  the 
tomb.  There  was  not  the  least  danger 
that  the  actor's  grave  would  be  violated 
by  the  Puritans,  for  Dr.  John  Hall,  Shak- 
spere's  son-in-law,  was  a  Puritan.  If  he 
had  had  this  warning  epitaph  cut  on  the 
tomb  it  would  have  been  written  in 
scholarly  English.  The  doggerel  lines, 
rude  as  they  are,  satisfied,  doubtless,  the 
widow  and  daughters,  themselves  ignor- 
ant. The  most  pleasing  epitaph,  it  seems 
to  us,  would  have  been  one  expressing  a 


AND  ROBERT  GREENE  125 

known  wish  of  their  ^^dear  departed"  in 
words,  when  read  by  otliers,  that  would 
best  suit  their  understandings,  for  tlie 
Shal^spere  family  were  uncultured.  They 
could  not  read  the  stu]3id  epitaph  on  his 
tomb,  and  so  their  hearts  were  not  sad- 
dened as  they  gazed  upon  an  inscription 
of  barbaric  rudeness. 

Some  slight  circumstance  may  have 
given  rise  to  William  Hall's  conjecture, 
during  his  visit  to  Stratford,  in  1694,  that 
Shakspere  authored  his  own  epitaph,  and 
that  these  lines  were  written  to  suit  the 
capacity  of  clerks  and  sextons,  who,  ac- 
cording to  Hall,  in  course  of  time  w^ould 
have  removed  Shakspere 's  dust  to  the 
bone  house.  This  is  not  improbable  from 
the  point  of  view  taken  by  those  who  be- 
lieve that  Shakspere  of  Stratford  wrote 
the  doggerel  epigram  on  John  Combe, 
money  lender,  and  the  vituperative  ballad 
abusing  the  gentleman  whose  park  he 
(Shakspere)  robbed,  for  the  three  com- 
positions are  of  the  same  grade  of 
ignorant  nonsense.    But  we  do  know  that 


126  WILLIAM  SHAKSPERE 

had  the  author  of  ^^ Hamlet"  written  his 
own  epitaph,  it  would  have  been  as  death- 
less as  the  one  over  the  Countess  of  Pem- 
broke : 

^'Underneath  this  sable  hearst 
''Lies  the  subject  of  all  verse 
"Sidnej^'s  sister— Pembroke's  mother 
"Death,  ere  thou  hast  slain  another 
"Learned  and  fair  and  good  as  she 
"Time  shall  throw  a  dart  at  thee," 

It  should  be  borne  in  mind  that  clerks 
and  sextons  were  not  the  only  ignorant 
people  in  and  about  Stratford.  There 
were  some  that  had  a  grievance,  or 
thought  they  had,  which  parish  clerks 
and  sextons  had  not.  We  have  reference 
to  the  poor  debtors,  who  regarded  Shak- 
spere  of  Stratford  as  a  grasping  usurer, 
hard  upon  poor  people  in  his  power,  so 
the  curse  inscribed  slab  was  placed  over 
Shakspere's  grave  as  a  shield  to  protect 
his  ashes  from  those  who  would  not  hesi- 
tate to  invade  the  tomb  of  one  whose 
memory  had  become  hateful  to  them.  If 
in  pressing  his  claim  the   money  lender 


AND  ROBERT  GREENE  127 

elects  to  be  a  tormentor,  Ms  name  will  be 
execrated  while  living  and  a  hateful 
memory  when  dead. 

One  thing  is  evidenced  by  the  maledic- 
tory epitaph;  that  the  one  who  wrote  it 
was  afraid  the  tomb  might  be  violated  % 
the  removal  of  the  bones  to  the  charnal 
honse.  Who  were  they  that  would  most 
likely  invade  Shakspere's  tomb?  Ob- 
viously those,  we  repeat,  who  regarded 
him  as  a  hard-hearted  man,  who  pressed 
poor  debtors  with  all  the  rigor  of  the  law 
to  enforce  the  payment  of  petty  sums; 
the  man  who  had  shown  himself  supremely 
selfish  in  an  attempt  to  enclose  the  Strat- 
ford common  field;  the  man  who  would 
be  made  "a  gentleman"  by  misrepresen- 
tation, fraud  and  falsehood.  The  fore- 
going facts,  and  the  les^al  and  municipal 
evidence  bound  up  in  dusty  records,  a 
bogus  coat-of-arms,  and  a  rude  epitaph, 
tell  the  true  story  of  the  life  of  William 
Shakspere  of  Stratford-on-Avon. 

There  is  no  record  of  any  pretended 
living  likeness  of  Shakspere   better  rep- 


128  WILLIAM  SHAKSPERE 

resenting  him  than  the  Stratford  bust. 
This  bust  is  erected  on  the  north  side  of 
the  chancel  of  Holy  Trinity  Church  at 
Stratford-on-Avon.  On  the  floor  of  the 
chancel  in  front  of  the  monument  are  the 
graves  of  Shakspere  and  his  family.  We 
have  no  means  of  ascertaining  when  the 
monument  and  bust  were  erected.  The 
first  folio  edition  of  his  reputed  works 
was  published  in  1623.  It  contained 
words  from  Leonard  Diggs  prefatory 
lines  ^^and  time  dissolves  thy  Stratford 
moniment,"  monument  being  used  inter- 
changeably with  tomb;  but  these  words 
do  not  prove  that  the  bust  was  set  up  be- 
fore 1623.  His  image  was  rudely  cut, 
sensual  and  clownish  in  aDpearance. 

There  is  not  a  tittle  of  evidence  adduced 
to  show  that  a  knowledge  of  Shakspere 's 
putative  authorship  of  poems  and  plays 
was  current  at  Stratford  when  the  first 
folio  edition  of  his  reputed  works  was 
published  in  1623.  The  records  attest 
that  Shakspere 's  fame  reputatively  as 
writer  is  posterior  to   this   event.     How 


AND  ROBERT  GREENE  129 

strange  it  must  seem  to  those  who  claim 
for  Shakspere  an  established  reputation 
as  poet  and  dramatist  of  repute  anterior 
to  the  first  folio  edition  in  1623,  that  Dr. 
Hall,  himself  an  author  and  most  ad- 
vantaged of  all  the  heirs  by  Shakspere 's 
death,  should  fail  to  mention  his  father- 
in-law  in  his  ^^ cure-book"  or  observa- 
tions !  The  earliest  dated  cure  is  1617,  the 
year  following  Shakspere 's  death,  but 
there  are  undated  ones.  In  ' '  Obs.  XIX. ' ' 
Hall  mentions  without  date  an  illness  of 
his  wife,  Mrs.  Hall;  and  we  find  him 
making  a  note  long  afterwards  in  refer- 
ence to  his  only  daughter,  Elizabeth,  who 
was  saved  by  her  father's  skill  and 
patience.  ^^Thus  was  she  delivered  from. 
^^  death  and  deadly  diseases  and  was  well 
^^for  many  years."  The  illness  of  Dray- 
ton is  recorded  without  date  in  ^^Obs. 
XXII.,"  with  its  wee  bit  of  a  literary 
biography,  and  he  is  referred  to  as  ^'Mr. 
Drayton,  an  excellent  poet."  Had  Shak- 
spere received  a  like  mention  as  a  poet  or 
writer  bv  one  who  knew  him  so  intimately, 


130  WILLIAM  SHAKSPERE 

what  a  delicious  morsel  it  would  have 
been  to  all  those  who  have  followed  the 
literary  antiquarian  through  the  dreary 
barren  waste  of  Shakespearean  research. 
We  have  found  nothing  but  husks,  and 
these,  eulogists  of  Shakespeare— Hallam, 
Stevens  and  Emerson— refused  to  crunch! 
For  nearly  three  centuries  the  Stratford 
archives  have  contained  all  matters  con- 
cerning Shakspere's  life  and  character, 
and  have  given  us  full  knowledge  of  the 
man;  nothing  has  been  lost;  but  of  his 
alleged  literary  life,  there  is  not  a  crumb, 
no  family  traditions,  no  books,  no  manu- 
scripts, no  letters,  no  commendatory 
verses,  plays,  masques  or  anthology. 

The  biographers  of  Shakespeare  have 
none  of  the  material  out  of  which  poets 
and  dramatists  are  made,  but  only  those 
facts  which  are  congruous  with  money 
lenders,  land  speculators,  play-brokers 
and  actors;  also,  a  good  assortment  of 
apocryphal  stores  and  gossipy  yarns 
which  have  become  traditional  currency. 
According  to  Mark  Twain  there  is  some- 


AND  ROBERT  GREENE  131 

thing  more.  He  says,  ^^When  we  find  a 
^S^agne  file  of  chipmunk  tracks  stringing 
^^  through  the  dust  of  Stratford  village 
^^we  know  that  Hercules  has  been 
^^ along."  Again  he  proceeds,  '^The  bust, 
^^too,  there  in  the  Stratford  church,  the 
^ ^precious  bust,  the  calm  bust  with  a  dandy 
''mustache,  and  the  putty  face  unseamed 
''with  care— that  face  which  has  looked 
"passionlessly  down  upon  the  awed  pil- 
''grim  for  a  hundred  and  fifty  years,  and 
''will  look  down  upon  the  awed  pilgrim 
"three  hundred  more  with  the  deep,  deep, 
"deep,  subtle,  subtle,  subtle  expression  of 
"a  bladder." 

Not  having  found  the  slightest  trace  of 
Shakespeare  in  1592  as  writer  of  plays, 
or  as  adapter  or  elaborator  of  other  men's 
work,  his  advent  into  literature  must 
have  been  at  a  later  date,  if  at  all.  In 
1593  "Venus  and  Adonis"  appeared  in 
print  with  a  dedication  to  Lord  South- 
ampton, and  signed  "William  Shake- 
speare." In  1594  appeared  another  poem, 
"Lucrece,"  also  with  a  dedication  to  Lord 


132  WILLIAM  SHAKSPERE 

Southampton.  The  poems  bore  no  name 
of  an  author  on  the  title  page.  Here  is 
literary  tangibility,  but  does  it  establish 
the  identity  of  their  author,  or  attest  the 
responsibility  of  the  young  Stratford  man 
for  the  poems  which  were  published  un- 
der the  name  of  Shakespeare  ?  This  was 
the  first  mention  of  the  now  famous 
name?  Was  it  a  pseudonym,  or  was  it 
the  true  name  of  the  author  of  the  poem  ? 
The  enthusiastic  reception  of  the  poems 
awakens  a  suspicion  when  we  learn  that 
their  popularity  was  due  to  a  belief  in 
their  lasciviency;  and  that  the  dedicatee 
was  the  rakish  Henry^  Worthesley,  third 
Earle  of  Southampton ;  and,  furthermore, 
that  the  name  of  the  dedicator,  '^  Shake- 
speare," was  one  of  a  class  of  nicknames 
which  in  1593  still  retained  in  some  meas- 
ure that  which  was  derisive  in  them.  In 
1487  a  student  at  Oxford  changed  his 
own  name  of  ^^Shakespeare"  into  '^Saun- 
ders," because  he  considered  it  too  expres- 
sive and  distinctive  of  rough  manners, 
and  significant    of    degradation,  and    as 


AND  ROBERT  GREENE  133 

such  was  unwilling  to  aid  in  its  heredi- 
tary transmission,  when  all  that  is  de- 
risive in  the  name  Shakspere  remained 
fixed  and  fossilized  in  the  old  meaning. 
In  those  unlettered  times,  lascivious  per- 
sons were  sometimes  branded,  so  to  speak, 
with  the  nickname  ^^ Shakspere."  Pri- 
marily, the  name  has  no  militant  signifi- 
cation. There  is  no  such  personal  name 
in  any  known  list  of  British  surnames. 
They  are  of  the  parvenu  class  without 
ancestrj^ 

Mr.  Sidney  Lee  admits  that  the  Earle 
of  Southampton  is  the  only  patron  of 
Shakspere  that  is  known  to  biographical 
research  (p.  126).  By  what  fact,  or 
facts,  may  we  ask,  is  the  authenticity  of 
the  Earl's  friendship  or  patronage  at- 
tested? Southampton  was  the  standing 
patron  of  all  the  poets,  the  stock-dedi- 
catee of  those  days.  It  was  the  fashion 
of  the  times  to  pester  him  with  dedica- 
tions by  poets  grave  and  gay.  They  were 
after  those  five  or  six  pounds,  which  cus- 
tom constrained  his  Lordship  to  yield  for 


134  WILLIAM  SHAKSPERE 

having  his  name  enshrined  in  poet's  lines. 
All  the  poets  of  that  age  were  dependents, 
and  there  is,  with  few  exceptions,  the 
same  display  of  pharisaic  sycophancy, 
greediness,  and  on  the  part  of  dedicatee 
an  inordinate  desire  for  adulation.  Every 
student  of  Elizabethan  literature  and 
history  should  know  that  the  Southamp- 
ton-Shakspere  friendship  cannot  be 
traced  biographically.  The  Earl  of 
Southampton  was  a  voluminous  corre- 
spondent, but  did  not  bear  witness  to  his 
friendship  for  Shakspere.  A  scrutinous 
inspection  of  Southampton's  papers  con- 
tained in  the  archives  of  his  family,  de- 
scendants and  contemporaries,  yields 
nothing  in  support  of  the  contention  that 
Southampton's  friendship,  or  patronage, 
is  known  to  biographical  research,  and  it 
is  as  attestative  as  that  other  apocryphal 
story  preserved  by  Rowe  ^^  which  is  fast 
disappearing  from  Shakespearean  bio- 
graphy." 

^' There  is    one  instance  so  singular  in 
^4ts  munificence  that  if  we  had  not  been 


AND  ROBERT  GREENE  135 

^^  assured  that  the  story  was  handed  down 
^^by  Sir  William  Davenant,  who  was 
^^  probably  very  well  acquainted  with  his 
•^affairs,  we  should  not  venture  to  have 
^  inserted  that  my  Lord  Southampton  at 
^^one  time  gave  him  (Shakspere)  a  thous- 
^^and  pounds,  to  enable  him  to  go  through 
^Svith  a  purchase  which  he  heard  he  had 
"si  mind  to."  (Davenant  was  the  man 
who  gave  out  that  he  was  the  natural  son 
of  Shakspere).  A  present  of  a  thousand 
pounds  which  equals  at  least  twenty-five 
thousand  dollars  to-day!  The  magnitude 
of  the  gift  discredits  the  story  neverthe- 
less, the  startled  Rowe,  is  the  first  to 
make  it  current,  but  does  not  give  his 
readers  the  ground  for  his  assurance.  Be 
it  what  it  may,  he  could  hardly  satisf}^ 
the  modern  reader  that  this  man,  a  son, 
who  insinuatingly  defiles  the  name  and 
fair  fame  of  his  own  mother,  is  a  credi- 
ble witness,  or  that  such  a  man  is  "Gi  for 
wolf  bait."  What  purchase  did  Shaks- 
pere '\go  through  with?"  Not  New  Place 
in  1597,  for  the  purchase  money  was  only 


136  WILLIAM  SHAKSPERE 

sixty  pounds.  Neither  could  it  have  been 
tlie  Stratford  estate  in  1602,  for  at  that 
time  Southampton  was  a  prisoner  in  the 
Tower.  In  fact,  the  whole  sum  expended 
by  Shakspere  did  not  amount  to  a  thous- 
and pounds  in  all.  The  truth  is,  the  so- 
cial Rules  of  Tudor  and  Jacobin  times 
did  not  permit  peer  and  peasant  to  live 
on  terms  of  mutual  good  feeling.  Almost 
all  the  poets  in  hope  of  gain,  penned 
adulatory  sonnets  in  praise  of  Lord 
Southampton.  In  those  times  they  had  a 
summary  way  of  dealing  with  humble 
citizens.  Jonson,  Chapman  and  Marston, 
were  imprisoned  for  having  displeased 
the  king  by  a  jest  in  ^'Eastward  Ho,"— 
^^A  nobleman  to  vindicate  rank  brought 
^^an  action  in  the  star-chamber  against  a 
^^  person,  who  had  orally  addressed  him 
'^as  'Goodman  Morley.'"  The  literati 
of  those  days  found  in  scholastic 
learning,  neither  potency,  nor  prom- 
ise, to  abrogate  class  distinctions  by 
giving-  a  passport  to  high  attainment 
in    literature,    poetry    and    philosophy. 


AND  ROBERT  GREENE  137 

Ben  Jonson  says,  ' '  The  time  was  when 
^^men  were  had  in  price  for  learn- 
^4ng,  now  letters  only  make  men  vile.  He 
^4s  upbraidingly  called  a  poet  as  if  it 
^'were  a  contemptible  nickname." 

Mr.  Lee  tells  us,  that  the  state  papers 
and  business  correspondence  of  South- 
ampton were  enlivened  by  references  to 
his  literary  interest  and  his  sympathy 
with  the  birth  of  English  Drama.  (P. 
316.).  ^^  However,  Mr.  Lee  has  extracted 
^'no  reference  to  Shakspere  from  the 
^' paper."  Southampton's  zest  for  the 
theatre  is  based  on  the  statement 
contained  in  the  ^^  Sidney  Papers" 
that  he  and  his  friend  Lord  Rut- 
land ^^come  not  to  court  but  pass 
'^away  the  time  merely  in  going  to  plays 
^^ every  day."  When  a  new  library  for 
his  old  college,  St.  Johns,  w^as  in  course 
of  construction,  Southampton  collected 
books  to  the  value  of  three  hundred  and 
sixty  pounds  wherewith  to  furnish  it. 
Southampton's  literary  tastes  and  sym- 
pathy with  the  drama  cannot  be  drawn 


138  WILLIAM  SHAKSPERE 

from  his  gift  to  the  library,  for  it  con- 
sisted largely  of  legends  of  the  saints  and 
mediaeval  chronicles.  When  and  where 
did  William  Shakspere  acknowledge  his 
obligations  to  the  only  patron  of  the 
player?  According  to  Mr.  Lee,  who  is 
known  to  biographical  research,  not  one 
of  the  Shakespearean  plays  was  dedi- 
cated to  Southampton.  The  name 
'^Shakspere"  is  conspicuously  absent 
from  among  the  distinguished  writers  of 
his  day,  who  in  panegyrical  speech  and 
song  acclaimed  Southampton's  release 
from  prison  in  1602. 

Francis  Meres,  a  pedantic  schoolmas- 
ter and  Divinity  student,  had  his  '^Pal- 
^4adin  Tamia"  registered  September  7,. 
1598,  and  published  shortly  after.  Meres 
in  his  ^^Tamia"  writes  of  the  mellifluous 
and  honey-tongued  Shakespeare,  and  his 
^' Venus  and  Adonis,"  and  his  ^^Lucrece," 
and  his  sugared  sonnets  to  his  friends, 
and  enumerates  twelve  plays— though  at 
the  time  three  only  had  been  published 
with  his  name.     Like  others  of  his  con- 


AND  ROBERT  GREENE  139 

temporaries,  Meres  writes  tritely  of  the 
lioney-tongued,  the  honey  sweet  and  the 
sugared.  With  him,  everything  written 
is  mellifluent,  but  he  says  nothing  of  the 
man.  In  fact,  no  contemporary  left  on 
record  any  definite  impression  of  Shakes- 
peare's  personal  character.  Meres  as- 
serted that  Ben  Jonson  was.  one  of  our 
best  poets  for  tragedy,  when  at  that  time 
(1598)  Jonson  had  not  written  a  single 
tragedy,  and  but  one  comedy. 

Before,  we  transcribe,  in  part,  ^^Wits 
^'Treasury"  by  Francis  Meres,  we  ask 
the  readers'  pardon  for  this  abuse  of  their 
patience,  for  Meres  merely  repeats  names 
of  Greek,  Latin  and  modern  play-makers. 
^^As  these  tragic  poets  flourished  in 
^^ Greece— Aeschylus,  Euripides"  (in  all 
seventeen  are  named  and  these  among  the 
Latin,  Accius,  M.  Attilus,  Seneca  and 
several  others).  ^^So  these  are  our  best 
'^for  tragedy;  the  Lord  Buckhurst,  Dr. 
^^Leg  of  Cambridge,  Dr.  Eds  of  Oxford, 
^^  Master  Edward  Ferris— the  author  of 
^Hhe  'Merriour  for   Magistrates,'— Mar- 


140  WILLIAM  SHAKSPERE 

^4owe,  Peele,  Watson,  Kyd,  Shakespeare, 
^^  Drayton,  Chapman,  Decker  and  Benja- 
^^min  Jonson.  The  best  poets  for  com- 
^^edy"— (Meres  proceeds  with  his  enum- 
eration, naming  sixteen  Greeks  and  ten 
Latins,  twenty-six  in  all.)  '^So  the  best 
^^for  comedy  amongst  us  be  Edward,  Ear] 
^'of  Oxford;  Dr.  Lager  of  Oxford;  Mas- 
^^ter  Rowley;  Master  Edwards:  eloquent 
^'and  wittie  John  Lilly;  Lodge;  Gas- 
' '  coyne ;  Greene ;  Shakespeare ;  Thomas 
''Nash;  Thomas  Hey  wood;  Anthony 
''Munday.  Our  best  plotters :  Chapman, 
''Porter,  Wilson,  Hathaway  and  Henrj^ 
"Chettle." 

Meres  does  not  seem  to  have  considered 
it  necessary  to  read  before  reviewing. 
Had  he  done  so  he  would  not  have  placed 
the  name  of  Lord  Buckhurst  first  in  his 
list,  giving  primacy  to  this  mediocrist,  and 
the  author  of  "Romeo  and  Juliet,"  who- 
ever he  was,  ninth  in  his  list  of  dramatic 
poets  which  he  considered  best  among  the 
English  for  tragedy;  nor,  would  he  have 
named  for  second  place  on  the  list    Dr. 


AND  ROBERT  GREENE  141 

Leg  of  Cambridge,  instead  of  the  author 
of  ^^The  Jew  of  Malta"  (Marlowe). 
What  has  Dr.  Eds  of  Oxford,  whose  name 
stands  third  in  the  Meres  list,  written 
that  he  should  have  been  mentioned  in  the 
same  connection  with  the  author  of  ''The 
''White  Devil"  (Webster)  or  the  author 
of  that  classic  "The  Conspiracy,"  and 
"The  Tragedy  of  Charles  Duke  of  By- 
"ron"  (Chapman)?  Why  this  com- 
mingling of  such  insignificant  writers  as 
Edward,  Earl  of  Oxford,  Lord  Buck- 
hurst,  Drs.  Lager  and  Leg,  with  the  giant 
brotherhood?  The  fact  is,  so  far  as  at- 
testing the  responsibility  of  anybody  or 
anything,  the  Meres  averments  are  as 
worthless  as  "a  musty  nut."  What  was 
said  of  John  Aubury  is  also  true  of  Fran- 
cis Meres,  "His  brain  was  like  a  hasty 
"pudding  whose  memory  and  judgment 
"and  fancy  were  all  stirred  together." 
Yet  this  is  the  writer  that  many  Shakes- 
pearean commentators  confidently  appeal 
to,  in  part,  and  whose  testimony,  in  part, 
they,  with  equal  unanimity  impeach. 


142  WILLIAM  SHAKSPERE 

The  slight  mention  of  Shakespeare  by 
the  ^^ judicious  Webster,"  as  Hazlet  calls 
him,  comprehends    no   more    than     that 
Shakspere  was  one  of  the  hack  writers  of 
the  day:    ^^ detraction  is  the  sworn  friend 
^Ho  ignorance."     For  mine  own  part  I 
have  ever  truly  cherished  ^^my  good  opin- 
ion   of    other    men's    worthy    labours, 
^especially  of  that  full   and   heightened 
^  style  of  Master  Chapman,  the  laboured 
^and    understanding    works    of  Master 
^Jonson,  the  no  less  worthy  composures 
^of  the  both  worthily  excellent  Master 
^Beaumont    and    Fletcher,    and    lastly 
'  (without  wrong  last  to  be   named)    the 
^  right  happy  and  copious  industry    of 
^Master    Shakespeare,    Master    Dekker 
^and  Master  Heywood." 

These  words  written  by  the  third  great- 
est of  English  tragic  poets  are  very  sig- 
nificant, for  Webster  wrote  for  the  thea- 
tre to  which  Shakspere,  the  player  and 
play-broker,  belonged ;  yet  industry  is  the 
only  distinguishing  mark  in  Shakspere 
which  he  must  share  with  Dekker,  and 


AND  ROBERT  GREENE  143 

Heywood,  hack  writers  for  the  stage. 
Dekker's  many  plays  attest  his  copious 
industry,  when  we  remember  that  this 
writer  spent  three  years  in  prison,  and 
Hey  wood's  industry  cannot  be  doubted 
for  he  claimed  to  have  had  a  hand  and 
main  finger  in  two  hundred  twenty  plays. 
Copious  industry  signifies  to  the  reader 
the  existence  of  an  author  not  utterly 
unknown,  it  is  true,  but  it  fails  to  identify 
him  as  the  author  of  the  immortal  plays. 
What  shall  we  say  then  ?  Were  the  works 
called  Shakespeare's  but  little  known? 
Shakspere's  biographers  say  that  they 
were  the  talk  of  the  town.  If  that  is  true, 
then  the  writer  who  was  commended  for 
industry  was  not  regarded  by  Webster  as 
the  author  of  '^Hamlet,"  '^Lear,"  and 
^^ Macbeth,"  for  Shakespeare's  distinctive 
characteristics  are  not  individualized 
from  those  of  Dekker  and  Heywood, 
while  those  of  Chapman,  Jonson,  Beau- 
mont and  Fletcher  are.  In  the  last  four 
named  is  perfect   interlacement   of  per- 


144  WILLIAM  SHAKSPERE 

sonalitv  with  authorship,  but  not  so  in 
Shakespeare. 

John  Webster's  judgment  of  his  fellow 
craftsman  w^as  just,  ''I  have  ever  truly 
^^  cherished  my  good  opinion  of  other 
^^ men's  worthy  labours."  Webster  never 
conceals  or  misrepresents  the  truth  by 
giving  evasive,  or  equivocating,  evidence. 
He  reveals  the  judicial  trait  of  his  char- 
acter in  placing  Chapman  first  among 
the  poets  then  living,  assuming  that  the 
name  Shakespeare  was  used  by  printers 
and  publishers,  if  not  by  writers,  as  an 
impersonal  nam^e,  masking  the  name  of  a 
true  poet.  Sidney,  Marlowe  and  Spencer 
had  then  descended  to  the  tomb. 

George  Chapman's  name  has  not  re- 
ceived due  prominence  in  the  modern 
hand-books  of  English  literature,  but  he 
was  a  bright  torch  and  numbered  by  his 
own  generation,  among  the  greatest  of  its 
poets.  He,  whom  Webster  calls  the 
^^ Prince's  Sweet  Homer"  and  ^^My 
^^ Friend,"  was  not  unduly  honored  by  the 
^^full  and  heightened  style"  which  Web- 


AND  ROBERT  GREENE  145 

ster  makes  characteristic  of  Mm.  ^^Our 
^^Homer-Lucan,"  as  he  was  gracefully 
termed  by  Daniel,  is  a  poet  much  admired 
by  great  men.  Edmund  Waller  never 
could  read  Chapman's  Homer  without  a 
degree  of  transport.  Barry  is  reputed  to 
have  said  that  when  he  went  into  the 
street  after  reading  it,  men  seemed  ten 
feet  high;  Coleridge  declares  Chapman's 
version  of  the  Odyssey  to  be  as  truly  an 
original  poem  as  the  ^^  Faerie  Queene." 
He  also  declares  that  Chapman  in  his 
moral  heroic  verse  stands  above  Ben  Jon- 
son.  ' '  There  is  more  dignity,  more  lustre, 
^^and  equal  strength." 

Translation  was  in  those  times  a  new 
force  in  literature.  By  the  indomitable 
force  and  fire  of  genius  Chapman  has 
made  Homer  himself  speak  English  by 
translating  the  genius,  and  by  having 
chosen  that  which  prefers  the  spirit  to 
the  letter.  It  is  in  his  translation  that 
the  ^^Hiad"  is  best  read  as  an  English 
book.  Out  of  it  there  comes  a  whiff  of 
the  breath  of  Homer.    It  is   as  massive 


146  WILLIAM  SHAKSPERE 

and  majestic  as  Homer  himself  would 
have  written  in  the  land  of  the  virgin 
qneen.  ^^He  has  added/'  says  Swinburne, 
"a  monument  to  the  temple  which  con- 
'^  tains  the  glories  of  his  native  language, 
''the  godlike  images,  and  the  costly  relics 
^^of  the  past."  ^^The  earnestness  and 
^^ passion/'  says  Charles  Lamb,  ^^ which 
^^he  has  put  into  every  part  of  these  po- 
^^ems  would  be  incredible  to  a  reader  of 
^^mere  modern  translations.  His  almost 
^^  Greek  zeal  for  the  honor  of  his  heroes 
' '  is  only  paralleled  by  that  fierce  spirit  of 
^^  Hebrew  bigotry  with  which  Milton,  as 
"it  personating  one  of  the  zealots  of  the 
^^old  law,  clothed  himself  when  he  sat 
^^down  to  paint  the  acts  of  Samson 
^^  against  the  uncircumcised. "  It  was  the 
reflected  Hellenic  radiance  of  the  grand 
old  Chapman  version  to  the  lifted  eyes  of 
Keats  flooded  with  the  ^4ight  which 
^^ never  was  on  sea  or  shore."  This 
younger  poet  sang: 


AND  ROBERT  GREENE  147 

^^Mucli  have  I  traveled  in  the  reahns  of 

gold, 
'^And  many  goodly  states  and  kingdoms 

seen, 
^^  Round   many  western   islands   have    I 

been, 
^^ Which  bards  in  fealty  to  Apollo  hold; 
'^Oft  of  one  wide  expanse  had  I  been  told 
'^That  deep-browed  Homer  ruled  as  his 

demesne 
^^Yet  did  I  never  breathe  its  pure  serene 
^^Till  I  heard   Chapman  speak   out  loud 

and  bold." 

The  preface  to  Webster's  tragedy, 
^^The  White  Devil,"  which  contains  a 
slight  mention  of  Shakespeare,  was 
printed  in  1612,  after  all  the  immortal 
plays  were  written  and  their  reputed  au- 
thor had  returned  to  Stratford,  probably 
in  1611,  in  his  fortj^-seventh  year,  where 
he  lived  idly  for  five  years  before  his 
death.  John  Webster  possessed  a  crit- 
ical faculty  and  an  independent  judg- 
ment, but  the  way  he  makes  mention  of 
Shakespeare  shows  that  he  knew  nothing 


148  WILLIAM  SHAKSPERE 

about  the  individual  man,  or  the  work, 
called  Shakespeare. 

The  generous  reference  to  '^The  la- 
^^boured  and  understanding  works  of 
^^  Master  Jonson"  gives  a  clear  idea  of  the 
main  characteristics  of  the  work  of  Jon- 
son,  who,  not  having  reached  the  fruition 
of  his  renown  in  1611,  but  in  the  after 
time,  camic  into  Dry  den's  view  as  ^^The 
'^  greatest  man  of  the  last  age,  the  m.ost 
^  learned  and  judicious  writer  any  thea- 
'Hre  ever  had."  John  Webster  writes  of 
"the  no  less  worthy  composures  of  Beau- 
^^mont  and  Fletcher"  then  in  the  morn- 
ing of  life.  They  present  an  admirable 
model  for  purity  of  vocabulary  and  sim- 
plicity of  expression  and  were  of  ^4oud- 
'^est  fame."  ''Two  of  Beaumont's  and 
''Fletcher's  plays  were  acted  to  one  of 
"Shakespeare's,  or  Ben  Jonson's,"  in 
Dry  den's  time. 

There  is  strong  presumptive  proof  that 
printers  and  publishers  in  Elizabethan 
and  Jacobin  times  were  in  the  habit  of  se- 
lecting names  or  titles  that  would    best 


AND  ROBERT  GREENE  149 

sell  their  books.  The  most  popular  books 
or  best  sellers  they  printed  were  books  of 
songs,  love-tales,  comedies  and  sonnets  of 
the  amorous,  scented  kind,  and  it  mat- 
tered not  to  publishers  if  the  name 
printed  on  the  title-page  was  a  personal 
name,  or  one  impersonal.  Title-pages 
were  not  even  presumptive  proof  of  au- 
thorship in  the  time  of  Queen  Elizabeth 
and  King  James.  The  printers  chose  to 
market  their  publications  under  the  most 
favorable  conditions,  and  some  writers 
chose  the  incognizable  name  '^Shakes- 
^^peare"  which  had  been  attached  to  the 
voluptuous  poem  ^' Venus  and  Adonis." 
This  was  published  by  Richard  Field,  in 
whose  name  it  had  been  entered  in  the 
Stationer's  Register  in  1593.  There  was 
no  name  of  an  author  on  the  title-page, 
but  the  dedication  was  to  the  Earl  of 
Southampton  and  was  signed  ^^  William 
^^Shakespeare."  This  was  the  first  ap- 
pearance of  the  name  ^^Shakespeare"  in 
literature,  being  the  non-de-plume,  doubt- 
less, of  the  writer  who  gave  this  erotic 


150  WILLIAM  SHAKSPERE 

poem  to  the  world— ^' The  first  heir  of  my 
^  invention." 

Not  finding  ^^Shakespeare"  in  the  an- 
tliology  of  his  dav^  the  most  natural  in- 
ference would  be  that  all  those  who  wrote 
under  the  name  ^^Shakespeare"  wrote  in- 
cognito. We  know  that  Marlowe,  Beau- 
mont, Greene,  Drayton  and  many  writers 
of  that  age  wrote  anonymously  for  the 
Elizabethan  stage.  Many  of  the  anony- 
mous writings  have  been  retrieved ;  much, 
doubtless,  remains  still  to  be  reclaimed 
from  the  sif tings  of  what  are  named 
Early  Comedy,  Early  History,  and  Pre- 
Shakespearean  Group  of  plays.  Mr. 
Spedding  had  the  good  fortune  to  be  the 
first  to  demonstrate  the  theory  of  a  di- 
vided authorship  of  ^' Henry  VHL,"  to 
reclaim  for  Fletcher  ^^Wolsey's  Farewell 
^Ho  all  his  Greatness."  Thirteen  out  of 
the  seventeen  scenes  of  '^  Henry  the 
^^ Eighth"  are  attributed  by  Mr.  Lee  (P. 
212)  to  Fletcher.  A  majority  of  the  best 
critics  now  agree  with  Miss  Jane  Lee,  in 
the  assignment  of  the  second  and   third 


AND  ROBERT  GREENE  151 

part  of  Henry  VI.  to  Marlowe,  Greene 
and  Peele. 

The  difficulty  of  identifying  Shakes- 
peare, the  author  poet,  with  the  young 
man  who  came  up  from  Stratford,  has 
induced  Shakespearean  scholars  to  ques- 
tion the  unity  of  authorship.  Mr.  Swin- 
burne tells  us  that  no  scholar  believes  in 
the  single  authorship  of  ^^Andronicus." 
Mr.  Lee  admits  that  Shakespeare  drew 
largely  on  the  ^'Hamlet,"  which  he  has 
attributed  to  Kyd  (P.  182).  ^^It  is 
'' scarcely  possible,"  says  Mr.  Marshall  in 
the  '^Irving  Shakespeare,"  ^Ho  maintain 
^^that  the  play  '  (Hamlet) '  referred  to  as 
'Svell  known  in  1589,  could  have  been  b}^ 
^^Shakspere— that  is— by  the  young  actor 
'^from  Stratford.  Sureh^  not.  We  see 
'^the  question  of  the  unity  of  the  author 
'^and  authorship  involves  the  question  of 
'4iis  identity."  It  is  evident  that  the  au- 
thor poet,  whoever  he  was,  had,  in  his 
time  of  initiation,  ^^purloyned  plumes" 
from  Marlowe,  K3^d  and  Greene,  and, 
when  nearing   the   close   of  his  literary 


152  WILLIAM  SHAKSPERE 

career,  according  to  Prof.  A.  H.  Thorn^ 
dike,  lie  was  a  close  imitator  of  Joliii 
Fletcher— not  so  much  an  innovator  as  an 
adapter. 

AVhat  do  we  know  of  Shakespeare,  the 
author  poet,  ''The  Man  in  a  Mask?"  We 
know  nothing,  absolutely  nothing.  No 
reputed  play  by  Shakespeare  was  pub- 
lished before  1597^  and  none  bore  the 
name  Shakespeare  on  the  title  page  till 
1598.  Lodge,  in  his  prose  satire  ''Wits 
"Misery,"  dated  1596,  enumerates  the 
wits  of  the  time.  Shakspere  is  not  men- 
tioned. Dr.  Peter  Heylys  was  born  in 
1600,  and  died  in  1662,  thus  being  sixteen 
years  old  when  Shakspere,  the  player 
died.  In  reckoning  up  the  famous  dra- 
matic poets  of  England  he  omits  Shaks- 
pere. Ben  Jonson,  in  the  catalogue  of 
writers,  also  omits  Shakspere,  and  at  a 
later  date,  writing  on  the  instruction  of 
youth  and  the  best  authors,  he  forgets  all 
about  Shakspere.  Philip  Henslow,  the 
old  play-broker,  also  in  writing  his  note- 
book during  the  twelve  years  beginning 


AND  ROBERT  GREENE  .     153 

in  February,  1591,  does  not  even  mention 
Shakspere.  Milton's  poem  on  Shakes- 
peare (1630)  was  not  published  in  his 
works  in  1645.  This  epitaph  was  prefixed 
to  the  folio  edition  of  Shakespeare 
(1632),  but  without  Milton's  name.  It  is 
the  first  of  his  reputed  poems  that  was 
published.  Its  pedigree  was  not  at  all 
satisfactory.  Milton,  having  been  misled 
by  Ben  Jonson's  lines  on  Shakespeare, 
^^And  though  thou  hadst  small  Latin  and 
"less  Greek,"  writes  of 

^^ Sweetest  Shakespeare,  Fancy's  child, 
Warbles  his  native  woodnotes  wild." 

Milton's  acquaintance  with  Shakes- 
peare verse  must  have  been  very  meager, 
for  had  he  read  ^' Venus  and  Adonis,"  so 
classic  and  formal,  he  would  agree  with 
Walter  Savage  Lander  that  ^^  No  poet  was 
^^ever  less  a  warbler  of  woodnotes  wild." 
It  was  never  said  in  the  original  authori- 
ties that  a  Shakespeare  play,  or  one  by 
Shakspere,  was  played  between  1594  and 
1614.     There    were   published  in   quarto 


154  WILLIAM  SHAKSPERE 

twenty-three  plays  in  Shakespeare 's 
name— twelve  of  which  are  not  now  ac- 
cepted—and nine  without  his  name.  The 
folio  (1623)  is  the  sole  original  authority 
for  seventeen  plays,  but  five  writers— 
four  of  them  very  inferior  men— refer  to 
Shakespeare,  antecedent  to  the  folio  of 
1623. 

Search  as  we  may,  w^e  fail  to  find  the 
play-actor  in  affiliation  with  poets  or 
scholars.  How  unlike  the  literary  men 
of  that  age;  for  instance,  George  Chap- 
man, who  had  been  called  the  ''blank  of 
''his  age,"  and  not  without  reason  for,  in 
all  that  pertains  to  the  poet's  personal 
history,  absolutely  nothing  is  known  in 
regard  to  his  family,  and  very  little  of  his 
own  private  life.  Much,  however,  is 
known  concerning  Chapman's  personal 
authorship  of  poems  and  plays  for  the 
list  of  passages  extracted  from  his  poems 
in  "England's  Parnassus"  or  the  "Choic- 
"est  Flowers  of  Our  Modern  Poets"  con- 
tains no  less  than  eighty-one.  At  the  time 
of  this  publication  (1600),  he  had   pub- 


AND  ROBERT  GREENE  155 

lislied  but  two  plays  and  three  poems. 
^^The  proud  full  sail  of  his  great  verse" 
(Chapman's  Homer)  had  not  at  this  time 
been  unfurled. 

At  the  time,  this  first  English  anthol- 
ogy was  compiled  and  published,  thirteen 
of  the  Shakespeare  plays  and  two  poems 
had  been  issued.  Nevertheless  Shakes- 
peare does  not  figure  in  the  anthology  of 
his  day.  Why?  The  play-actor,  Wil- 
liam Shakspere,  in  his  life  time  was  not 
publicly  credited  with  the  personal  au- 
thorship of  the  plays  and  poems  called 
Shakespeare's,  except  possibly  by  three 
or  four  j)oeticules,  Bomfield,  Freeman, 
Meres,  and  Weaver,  who  followed  each 
other  in  the  iteration  and  reiteration  of 
the  same  insipid  and  affected  compli- 
ments, not  one  of  them  impljdng  a  per- 
sonal acquaintance  with  the  author.  Some 
few  persons  may  have  believed  that  the 
player  and  play-wright  were  one  and  the 
same  person,  and  were  deceived  into  so 
believing.  This  much  we  do  know,  that 
the  player  Shakspere  never  openly  sane- 


156  WILLIAM  SHAKSPERE 

tioned  tlie  identification,  although  he  may 
have  been  accessory  to  the  deception.  It 
should  be  borne  in  mind  also  that  no  poet 
was  remembered  in  Shakspere's  will,  as 
were  the  actors. 

Many  writers  of  that  age  were  com- 
munistic in  the  use  of  the  name  ' '  Shakes- 
^^peare"  as  a  descriptive  title,  very  much 
like  the  Italians'  pantomime  called  '^Sil- 
^^verspear/'  standing  for  the  collocuted 
works  of  not  one,  but  several  play- 
makers.  Sir  Thomas  Brown  complained 
that  his  name  was  being  used  to  float 
books  that  he  never  wrote.  In  the  list  be- 
fore us  there  are  forty-nine  plays  which 
were  published  with  Shakespeare's  name. 
Doubtless  there  were  many  others;  not 
one  in  fifty  of  the  dramas  of  this  period, 
according  to  Hallowell-Philips,  having 
descended  to  modern  times.  Many  writ- 
ers of  that  age  wrote  anonymously  and 
pseudonymously.  Edmund  Spencer,  au- 
thor of  '^The  Shepherd's  Calendar"  re- 
mained incognito  for  seven  years.  Eight 
years  after  this  work  appeared  George 


AND  ROBERT  GREENE  157 

Wliitstone  ascribed  it  to  Philip  Sidney 
and  a  cotemporary  writer,  mistaking 
Spencer's  masking  name  for  the  author 
of  the  works.  Spencer  committed  ''The 
Faerie  Queen"  to  the  press  after  nine 
3^ears.  Only  four  of  Beaumont  and 
Fletcher's  plays  were  published  in 
Fletcher's  lifetime  and  none  of  them  bore 
Beaumont's  name.  Fletcher  survived 
his  partner  nine  years.  Robert  Burton, 
author  of  The  Anatomy  of  Melancholy," 
maintained  his  incognito  for  a  time,  he 
avers,  because  it  gave  him  greater  free- 
dom. Jean  Baptiste  Popuelin  preferred 
to  be  known  as  Moliere.  ^Francais-Marie 
Aronet  won  enduring  fame  as  Voltaire. 
Sir  Walter  Scott  maintained  his  incog- 
nito as  the  great  unknown  for  years  like 
''Junius,"  "whose  secret  was  intrusted  to 
"no  one  and  was  never  to  be  revealed." 
Sir  Walter  Scott  preserved  his  secret  un- 
til driven  to  the  brink  of  financial  de- 
struction. Drayton  also  had  written 
under  the  pseudonym  of  Rowland.  Who 
can  doubt  that  the  author  of  "Hamlet," 


158  WILLIAM  SHAKSPERE 

^^Lear''  and  ^'Macbeth,"  chose  to  sheath 
his  private  life  and  personality  as  a  man 
of  letters  in  an  impenetrable  incognito— 
"the  nothingness  of  a  name." 

Of  the  thirty-seven  plays  assigned  by 
the  folio  of  1623,  not  one  had  received  the 
acknowledgment  of  their  reputed  au- 
thor (Shakespeare).  Not  a  single  line  in 
verse  or  prose  assented  to  for  comparison 
and  identification,  and  in  the  absence  of 
credible  evidence  of  his  authorship  of 
certain  poems,  there  can  be  no  authorita- 
tive sanction  of  the  assignment. 

No  person  writing  on  the  subject  of 
Shakespeare  can  write  a  literary  life  of 
the  individual  man,  for  player  Shakspere 
of  Stratford-on-Avon  does  not  offer  a 
single  point  of  correspondence  to  the  ac- 
tivities of  a  literary  man  or  scholar.  The 
fantastical  critics  profess  to  read  the 
story  of  the  author's  life  in  his  works. 
This  is  an  absurdity,  for  dramatic  art  is 
mainly  character  creation  and  cannot  be 
made  to  disclose  a  knowledge  of  his  pri- 
vate life.     The  artist  is  an  observer   and 


AND  ROBERT  GREENE  159 

paints  the  thing  seen.  He,  himself,  is  not 
the  thing  which  he  depicts  but  he  gives 
the  character  as  it  is.  In  the  opinion  of 
the  present  writer  it  is  a  waste  of  time  to 
attempt  to  identify  Shakspere,  the  play- 
actor, with  any  one  of  the  dramatic  per- 
sonages contained  in  the  plays  called 
Shakespeare's. 

Forty-six  years  after  the  death  of  Wil- 
liam Shakspere  of  Stratford,  Thomas 
Fuller  in  his  '^Worthies,"  published 
posthumously  in  1662,  wrote: 

^^Many  were  the  wit-combats  between 
^^him  and  Ben  Jonson,  which  two  I  be- 
^^hold  like  a  Spanish  great  galleon  and  an 
^'English  man-of-war." 

Fuller  being  born  in  1608,  was  only 
eight  years  old  when  player-Shakspere 
died,  and  but  two  when  he  quitted  Lon- 
don. If  this  precocious  youngster  beheld 
the  ^Svit-combats"  of  the  two,  he  could 
only  have  beheld  them  as  he  lay  ^^mewl- 
'4ng  and  puking  in  his  nurse's  arms." 


VI. 

We  have  in  conclusion  decided  to  fo- 
cus the  interest  of  the  reader  chiefly  in 
the  attestation  of  Ben  Jonson  for  the 
works  which  were  associated  with  the 
name  of  William  Shakspere  of  Stratford. 
Ben  Jonson  presents  a  contrast  to  Wil- 
liam Shakspere,  in  almost  every  respect, 
so  striking  as  to  awaken  an  irrepressible 
desire  to  compare  the  mass  of  proven 
facts  adduced  from  authentic  records. 
Being  born  in  the  city  of  London  in  the 
early  part  of  1574,  he  was  ten  years 
younger  than  Shakspere.  He  was  the  son 
of  a  clergyman.  In  spite  of  poverty  he 
was  educated  at  Westminster  School, 
William  Camden  being  his  tutor,  to  whom 
Jonson  refers  as  "  Camden,  most  reverend 
^'head,  to  whom  I  owe  all  that  I  am— in 
arts  all  that  I  owe."  A  recent  writer  on 
the  subject  of  Jonson  says,  '^No  other  of 
'^  Shakspere 's  contemporaries  has  left  so 
/'splendid  and  so  enthusiastic  an  eulogy 


AND  ROBERT  GREENE  161 

'^of  the  master."  In  this  statement  all 
must  concur,  for  Jonson  is  the  only 
writer  of  eminence  among  Shakspere's 
cotemporaries,  who  has  left  words  of 
praise  or  censure,  or  have  taken  any  no- 
tice, either  of  Shakspere,  or  of  the  works 
which  bear  his  name ;  notwithstanding,  it 
was  the  custom  among  literary  men  of 
the  day  to  belaud  their  friends  in  verse  or 
prose,  Shakspere  in  his  lifetime  was  hon- 
ored with  no  mark  of  Ben  Jonson 's  ad- 
miration. Not  a  single  line  of  commend- 
atory verse  was  addressed  to  Shakspere 
by  Jonson,  although  this  promiscuous 
panegyrist  was,  with  characteristic  ex- 
travagance, so  indiscriminate  in  sympa- 
thy or  patronage.  What  shrimp  was 
there  among  hack  writers  who  could  not 
gain  a  panegyric  from  his  generous 
tongue  ? 

For  five  and  twenty  years  Shakspere 
and  Jonson  jostled  in  London  streets,  yet 
there  was  no  sign  or  word  of  recognition 
as  they  passed  each  other  by.  Writers  on 
the  subject  of  Jonson  and  Shakspere  say 


162  WILLIAM  SHAKSPERE 

that  we  have  abundant  tradition  of  their 
close  friendship.  There  are  no  credible 
traditions.  The  manufactured  traditions, 
so  conspicuous  in  books  called,  ''A  Life 
of  William  Shakspere/'  are  the  dreams 
of  fancy,  fraud  and  fiction,  used  to  fill 
the  lacuna,  or  gap,  in  the  life  of  the  Strat- 
ford man. 

The  proven  facts  of  William  Shaks- 
pere's  life  are  facts  unassociated  with  au- 
thor craft— facts  that  prove  the  isolation 
and  divorcement  of  player  and  poet.  The 
proven  facts  of  Ben  Jonson's  life  are 
facts  interlacing  man  and  poet.  Almost 
every  incident  in  his  life  reveals  his  per- 
sonal affection,  or  bitter  dislike,  for  his 
fellow  craftsmen,  always  ready  for  a 
quarrel,  arrogant,  vain,  boastful  and  vul- 
gar. There  is  much  truth  in  Dekker's 
charge,  '^'Tis  thy  fashion  to  flirt  ink  in 
^^ every  man's  face  and  then  crawl  into 
''his  bosom."  He  had  many  quarrels 
with  Marston,  beat  him,  and  wrote  his 
''Poetaster  on  him."  He  was  federated 
in  a  comedy    "(Eastward    Ho)"    with 


AND  ROBERT  GREENE  163 

Chapman,  and  was  sent  to  prison  for  li- 
beling the  Scottish  nobility.  Ben  Jon- 
son's  personality  and  literary  work  are 
inseparable.  Drunk  or  sober,  few  have 
served  learning  with  so  much  pertinacity, 
and  fewer  still,  have  so  successfully  chal- 
lenged admiration  even  from  literary  ri- 
vals, with  whom  at  times  he  w^as  most  bit- 
terly hostile,  and  at  other  times,  indis- 
putably open-handed  and  jovial. 

Ben  Jonson  had  a  literary  environ- 
ment always  for  there  is  perfect  inter- 
lacement of  man  and  craft.  He  became 
one  of  the  most  prolific  writers  of  his  age 
occupying  among  the  men  of  his  day  a 
position  of  literary  supremacy.  "In  the 
forty  years  of  his  literary  career  he  col- 
^4ected  a  library  so  extensive  that  Gif- 
'^ford  doubted  whether  any  library  in 
' '  England  was  so  rich  in  scarce  and  valu- 
^^able  books."  From  the  pages  of  Isaac 
De  Israeli  we  read,  ^^No  poet  has  left  be- 
'^hind  him  so  many  testimonials  of  per- 
^^sonal  fondness  by  inscriptions  and 
^'addresses   in   the   copies   of  his  works 


164  WILLIAM  SHAKSPERE 

'^ which  he  presented  to  his  friends."  But 
of  all  these,  as  strange  as  it  must  seem  to 
the  votaries  of  Shakspere,  not  a  single 
copy  of  Jonson's  works  is  brought  for- 
ward to  bear  witness  of  his  personal  re- 
gard and  admiration  for  Shakspere,  and 
we  may  add  that  there  is  no  testimonial 
by  Shakspere  of  his  regard  and  personal 
fondness  for  Ben  Jonson,  although  many 
of  the  literary  antiquaries  have  un- 
earthed in  their  researches  facts  or  new 
discoveries,  which  they  have  brought  for- 
ward as  new  particulars  of  the  life  of 
William  Shakspere.  These,  if  not  incom- 
patible with  authorship,  are  surely  di- 
vorcing Shakspere,  the  actor,  from 
Shakespeare,  the  author  poet.  They  but 
deepen  the  mystery  that  surrounds  the 
personality  of  the  author  of  the  immortal 
plays— ^^ The  shadow  of  a  mighty  name.'- 
At  the  same  time  they  disclose  the  true 
character  of  Shakspere  the  actor,  money- 
lender, land-owner  and  litigant,  which  is 
affirmative  of  John  Bright 's  opinion 
that  ^^any  man  who  believes  that  William 


AND  ROBERT  GREENE  165 

^^Sliakspere  of  Stratford  wrote  'Hamlet' 
''or  'Lear'  is  a  fool." 

The  student  reader  will  perceive  that 
Jonson's  verse  does  not  agree  with  his 
prose,  and  that  .  his  "Ode  to  Shakes- 
"peare/'  which  Dry  den  called  "an  inso- 
"lent,  sparing,  and  invidious,  panegyric," 
Avas  not  the  final  word  of  comment  which 
is  contained  in  Ben  Jonson's  "Discover- 
"ies"— a  prose  reference  in  disparage- 
ment of  Shakespeare,  the  writer,  while 
laudatory  of  the  man  whom,  he  may  have 
believed  was  identifiable  with  the  play- 
Avright.  We  believe  he  was  mistaken  in 
so  believing.  Ben  Jonson  was  vulnerable 
most  in  his  character  as  a  witness.  The 
reader  must  therefore  be  indulgent  if  we 
make  some  remarks  upon  the  credibility 
and  competency  of  this  witness.  The 
elder  writers  on  the  subject  of  Jonson 
and  Shakespeare  before  Gifford's  time 
(1757-1826)  were  always  harping  on  Ben 
Jonson 's  jealousy  and  envy  of  Shakes- 
peare. Since  Gifford's  day  the  antiquary 
has  been  abroad  in  the  land  without  hav- 


166  WILLIAM  SHAKSPERE 

ing  discovered  anything  of  a  literary  life 
of  Shakespeare.  As  if  by  general  consent, 
all  recent  writers  on  the  subject  regard 
Jonson's  attestation,  or  his  metrical  trib- 
ute, to  the  ^^  memory  of  my  beloved  au- 
thor, Mr.  William  Shakespeare,  '^an  es- 
^^sential  element  in  Shakespeare's  biog- 
^^raphy  as  the  title  deed  of  authorship.'- 
Having  made  him  their  star  witness,  we 
shall  hear  no  more  of  Jonson's  jealousy 
and  envy  of  Shakespeare. 

A  final  consideration  will  show  how  lit- 
tle Ben  Jonson  is  to  be  relied  on  ''as  at- 
'' testing  the  responsibility  of  the  Strat- 
''ford  player  for  the  works  which  are 
''associated  with  his  name."  There  is  not 
a  word  or  sentence  in  all  Jonson's  writ- 
ings which  bear  witness  to  Shakspere  as 
a  writer  of  plays  or  poems  anterior  to  the 
Stratford  player's  death,  as  all  reference 
to  Shakespeare  in  Jonson's  verse  and 
prose  are  posterior  to  this  event.  They 
refute  each  other  and  discredit  the 
writer.  "Conversations  of  Ben  Jonson 
"with  William  Drummond"  are  of  great 


ANE)  ROBERT  GREENE  167 

literary  and  historical  value  and  are  im- 
Ijortant  too,  as  bearing  on  Ben  Jonson's 
competency  and  credibleness  as  a  wit- 
ness. The  Drunimond  notes  were  first 
printed  by  Mr.  David  Lang,  who  dis- 
covered them  among  the  manuscripts  of 
Sir  Robert  Sibbald,  a  well  known  anti- 
quarian. '^ Conversations,"  as  we  have 
it  on  the  evidence  of  Drummond,  is  in 
accord  with  almost  every  contemporary 
reference  to  Jonson  and  internally  they 
agree  with  Ben  Jonson's  own  ^ ^Discover- 
^4es."  There  should  be  no  controversy 
in  regard  to  the  justice  of  the  Scottish 
poet's  criticism.  From  the  notes  re- 
corded by  Drummond  we  learn,  ^'He 
^^(Ben  Jonson)  is  a  great  lover  and 
^^praiser  of  himself,  a  contemner  and 
^^scorner  of  others,  especially  after  drink 
' '  which  is  one  of  the  elements  in  which  he 
^4iveth."  The  conversations  recorded  by 
Drummond  took  place  when  Jonson  vis- 
ited him  at  Hawthornden  in  1618-19  and 
disclose  the  fact  that  ^^Rare  Ben"  was  a 
vulgar,    boastful,    tipsy    backbiter,  who 


168  WILLIAM  SHAKSPERE 

black-guarded  many  of  his  fellow  crafts- 
men. The  last  circumstance  recorded  of 
Ben  Jonson  is  where  reference  is  made  to 
his  display  of  self -worship  at  the  expense 
of  others.  In  a  letter  dated  from  West- 
minster April  5,  1636,  James  Howell  de- 
scribes a  Solem  supper  giA^en  by  Jonson 
at  which  he  and  Thomas  Carew  were 
present,  when  Ben  seems  to  have 
drenched  himself  with  his  favorite  can- 
ary wine.    How^ell  writes, 

^^I  was  invited  ^yesternight  to  a  Solem 
^^ supper  by  B.  J.  whom  you  deeply  re- 
' ^member.  There  was  good  company,  ex- 
^^cellent  cheer,  choice  wines,  and  jovial 
^^  welcome.  One  thing  intervened  which 
'^alm.ost  spoiled  the  relish  of  the  rest. 
'^Ben  began  to  engross  all  the  discourse 
'^to  vapour  extremely  of  himself  and  by 
^Sdlifying  others  to  magnify  his  own 
'^muse.  Thomas  Carew  buzzed  me  in  the 
^^ear  that  Ben  had  barreled  up  a  great 
'^deal  of  knowledge,  yet  seems  he  had  not 
^^read  the  ^Ethiques'  which,  among  other 
''precepts  of  morality,    forbid   self  com- 


AND  ROBERT  GREENE.  169 

^^mendation.    But  for  my  part  I  am  con- 
^^tent  to  dispense  with  this  Roman  infirm- 
^4ty  of  B's  now   that  time  has   snowed 
/^upon  his  pricranium." 

The  reader  is  not  unmindful  that  the 
language  of  Ben  Jonson  is  sometimes 
grossly  opprobrious,  sometimes  basely 
adulatory,  while  his  laudatory  verses 
on  Shakespeare,  Silvester,  Beaumont 
and  other  cotemporary  writers,  are  in 
striking  contrast  by  the  discrepancy  of 
testimony  disclosed  by  his  prose  works 
and  conversations.  In  the  memorial 
verses  Jonson  tells  us  Shakespeare  stood 
alone— ^^  Alone  for  the  comparison  of  all 
''that  insolent  Greece  or  haughty  Rome 
^^sent  forth  or  since  did  from  their  ashes 
^^come."  The  strictest  scrutiny,  how- 
ever, into  the  life  and  works  of  Ben  Jon- 
son fails  to  denote  his  actual  acquaint- 
ance with  the  works  of  the  greatest  gen- 
ius of  our  world.  What  became  of  his 
enthusiastic  eulogy  of  Shakespeare,  when 
^^from  my  house  in  the  Black-Friars  this 
^'llth  day  of  February,  1607"  Ben  Jon- 


170  WILLIAM  SHAKSPERE 

son  writes  his  dedication— ^^Volpone"  to 
^^The  Two  Famous  Universities/'  which 
should  have  disclosed  his  close  friendship 
with,  and  admiration  for,  William 
Shakespeare,  for  the  great  dramatist  was 
then  in  the  zenith  of  his  power.  The  dedi- 
cation of  ^^Volpone"  was  written  nine 
years  before  the  death  of  William  Shak- 
spere,  the  player,  when  Jonson  declared 
' '  I  shall  raise  the  despised  head  of  poetry 
^^  again  and  stripping  her  out  of  those 
^^  rotten  and  base  rags  wherewith  the 
'^ times  have  adulterated  her  form." 

It  should  be  remembered,  that  at  the 
time  of  this  sweeping  condemnation  of 
what  he  terms  dramatic  or  stage-poetry, 
thirty-one  of  the  thirty-six  of  the  immor- 
tal Shakespearean  plays  were  then  writ- 
ten. All  of  the  very  greatest— ^^  Ham- 
let," ^'Lear,"  ^^  Macbeth  "—were,  in  Ben 
Jonson 's  estimation  in  1607,  ^^  rotten  and 
^'base  rags."  While  in  1623  in  the 
''Memorial  Verses"  he  tells  us  that  their 
reputed  author  was  the  ''soul  of  the 
age."  "It  is  a  legal  maxim  that  a  witness 


AND  ROBERT  GREENE  171 

^^wlio  swears  for  both  sides  swears  for 
'^neither,  and  a  rule  of  common  law  no 
*4ess  than  common  sense  that  his  evi- 
^^dence  must  be  ruled  out."  Ben  Jonson's 
egotism  would,  of  course,  preclude  a  just 
judgment  of  the  work  of  his  fellow 
craftsman.  He  felt  that  his  own  writings 
were  immeasurably  superior.  Did  he 
ever  read  the  so-called  Shakspere  plays 
before  he  wrote  the  ^^Ode  to  the  Memory 
''of  my  Beloved  The  Author,  Mr.  Wil- 
''liam  Shakespeare,  and  What  He  Hath 
''Left  Us"  for  the  syndicate  of  printers? 
For  the  affirmative  of  the  proposition 
there  is  not  the  faintest  presumption  of 
probable  evidence.  Jonson  often  became 
the  generous  panegyrist  of  poets  whose 
writings  in  all  probability  he  never  had 
read.  He  took  pleasure  in  commending 
in  verse  the  works  of  men  not  worthy  of 
his  notice,  and  in  lauding  and  patronizing 
juvenile  mediocrity  and  poeticules  of  the 
gutter-snipe  order.  In  his  prefatory 
remarks  to  the  reader  in  "Sejanus" 
there    is    the    same    display    of    excess 


172  WILLIAM  SHAKSPERE 

of  commendation.  Ben  Jonson  writes, 
'^Lastly  I  would  inform  you  that  this 
'^book  in  all  numbers  is  not  the  same 
^^with  that  which  was  acted  on  the  public 
'^  stage  wherein  a  second  pen  had  good 
^^  share,  in  place  of  which  I  have  rather 
^^  chosen  to  put  weaker  and  no  doubt  less 
'^pleasing  of  my  own  than  to  defraud  so 
'^  happy  a  genius  of  his  right  by  my  loath- 
^^ed  usurpations." 

According  to  Dry  den,  Ben  Jonson 's 
^compliments  were  left-handed.  Neverthe- 
less, the  words  ^^so  happy  a  genius"  have 
directed  the  thoughts  of  commentators  to 
Shakespeare.  Mr.  Nicholson,  however, 
has  shown  that  the  person  alluded  to  is 
not  Shakespeare,  but  a  very  inferior  poet, 
Samuel  Sheppard,  who  more  than  forty 
years  later  claimed  for  himself  the  honor 
of  having  collaborated  in  ^^Sejanus"  with 
Ben  Jonson.  Compliments  bestowed  on 
inferior  men  of  the  elder  time  are  in 
later  times  the  reprisal  of  Shakespearean 
buccaneers;  while  many  of  Jonson 's  ver- 
sified panegyrics  on   cotemporary    poets 


AND  ROBERT  GREENE  173 

were  retrieved  by  his  withering  con- 
tempt for  many  of  them,  orally  expressed, 
or  contained  in  his  prose  works,  Shakes- 
peare being  included  among  these.  Still, 
at  the  Apollo  roonl  of  the  Devil  Tavern 
were  numbered  the  most  distinguished 
men  of  the  day  outside  of  literary  cir- 
cles, as  well  as  within,  who  sought  his  f  el- ' 
lowship  and  would  gladly  have  sealed 
themselves  of  the  tribe  of  Ben.  Claren- 
don tells  us  that  ^  ^  his  conversations  were 
''verj^  good  and  with  men  of  most  note." 

The  following  is,  in  part,  from  the 
notes  recorded  by  William  Drummond, 
Laird  of  Hawthornden. 

^^Conversations  of  Ben  Jonson.  His 
^^ censure  of  the  English  poets  was  this: 
^^That  Sidney  did  not  keep  a  decorum  in 
'^making  every  one  speak  as  well  as  him- 
^^self.  Spencer's  stanzas  pleased  him  not 
^^nor  his  matter. 

^^  Samuel  Daniel  was  a  good  honest 
^^man,  had  no  children,  but  no  poet,  and 
'^was  jealous  of  him;  that  Michael  Dray- 
^^ ton's  long    verses    pleased    him    not — 


174  WILLIAM  SHAKSPERE 

'Drayton  feared  him  and  he  esteemed  not 
'of  him;  that  Donne's  'Anniversary'  was 

'profane  and  full  of  blasphemies 

'that  Donne,  for  not  keeping  of  accent 
'deserved  hanging;  that  Shakespeare 
'wanted  art;  that  Day,  Dekker  and  Min- 
'shew  were  all  rogues ;  that  Abram  Fran- 
'cis,  in  his  English  hexameters,  was  a 
'  fool ;  that  next  to  himself  only  Fletcher 
'and  Chapman  could  make  a  masque. 

"He  esteemeth  John  Donne  the  first 
'poet  in  the  world  in  some  things;  that 
'Donne,  himself,  for  not  being  under- 
'  stood  w^ould  perish. 

"Sir  Henry  Wotton's  verses  of  a 
'  'Happy  Life'  he  hath  by  heart,  and  a 
'piece  of  Chapman's  translation  of  the 
'thirteen  of  the  'Iliads,'  which  he  think- 
'eth  well  done.  That  Francis  Beaumont 
'loved  too  much  himself  and  his  own 
'verse. 

"He  had  many  quarrels  with  Marston; 
'that  Markham  was  not  of  the  number  of 
'the  faithful,  and  but  a  base  fellow;  that 
'such  were   Day   and    Middleton;    that 


AND  ROBERT  GREENE  175 

^Chapman  and  Fletcher  were  loved  of 
^him ;  that  Spencer  died  for  lack  of  bread 
4n  King  street;  that  the  King  said  Sir 
^P.  Sidney  was  no  poet.  Neither  did  he 
^see  any  verses  in  England  to  the  Scul- 
lers, meaning  that  John  Taylor  was  the 
'best  poet  in  England;  that  Shakespeare 
4n  a  play  brought  in  a  number  of  men 
^saying  they  had  suffered  shipwreck  in 
^Bohemia  where  there  is  no  sea  near  by 
^some  100  miles. 

'^Sundry  times  he  (Jonson)  hath  de- 
voured his  books,  sold  them  all  for  neces- 
'sity;  that  he  hath  consumed  a  whole 
^  night  in  lying  looking  at  his  great  toe, 
'  about  which  he  hath  seen  Carthagenians 
^and  the  Romans  fighting;  that  the  half 
'of  his  comedies  were  not  in  print;  he 
'said  to  Prince  Charles,  of  Inigo  Jones, 
'that  when  he  wanted  words  to  express 
'the  greatest  villain  in  the  world,  he 
'would  call  him  an  'Inigo,'  Jones  having 
'accused  him  for  naming  him,  behind  his 
'back,  a  fool,  he  denied  it;  but,  says  he,  I 
'said  he   w^as   an    arrant  knave,    and   I 


176  WILLIAM  SHAKSPERE 

^'avouch  it;  of  all  his  plays  he  never 
^^ gained  200  pounds;  he  dissuaded  me 
'^from  poetry  for  that  she  had  beggared 
^^him  when  he  might  have  been  a  rich 
^ lawyer,  physician,  or  merchant;  that 
^ Apiece  of  the  ^Pucelle  of  the  Court'  was 
^'stolen  out  of  his  pocket  by  a  gentleman 
^^who  drank  him  drowsy." 

These  occasional  infractions  of  sobriety 
by  Ben  Jonson  when  he  conversed  with 
Drummond  at  Hawthornden  in  1618-19 
became  habitual  with  him  long  before 
James  Howell's  invitation  to  a  Solem 
supper  by  B.  J.  1636. 

Day,  Middleton,  Dekker  and  Sir 
Walter  Raleigh  could  have  instituted  a 
civil  suit  against  Ben  Jonson  for  defama- 
tion of  character,  because  of  the  defama- 
tory words  in  conversation  with  William 
Drum.mond  of  Hawthornden,  had  the 
notes  recorded  by  Drummond  been  pub- 
lished in  the  lifetime  of  the  defamed. 
However,  they  had  come  to  regard  him, 
doubtless,  as  a  notorious  slanderer  who 
would  as  soon  falsifj^  as  verify,  and  was 


AND  ROBERT  GREENE  177 

not  to  be  believed  in  unsworn  testimony 
about  his  fellowmen  or  as  a  credible  wit- 
ness as  to  any  matter— one  whose  testi- 
mony was  none  too  good  under  every 
sanction  possible  to  give  it.  This  is  the 
writer  who  gave  genesis  to  the  Stratford 
myth.  The  matter-of-fact  to  be  accen- 
tuated is  that  the  contemporaries  of  the 
writer  of  the  immortal  plays  did  not  know 
positively  who  wrote  them;  we  do  not 
know  positively  w^ho  wrote  them ;  and  our 
latest  posterity,  wdien  Holy  Trinity's 
monuments,  turrets,  and  towers  shall  have 
crumbled  and  commingled  with  the 
shrined  dust  of  William  Shakspere  of 
Stratford-on-Avon,  may  not  know  posi- 
tively w^ho  wrote  them. 

In  conclusion,  it  has  not  been  our  de- 
sign to  point  out,  or  suggest,  who,  in  fact, 
wrote  the  poems  and  plays,  but  rather  to 
show  that  the  man  of  Stratford  was  by 
education,  temperament,  character,  repu- 
tation, opportunity  and  calling,  wholly 
unequal  to  so  transcendent  a  task,  and 
that  the  authorship  assumed  in  favor   of 


178  WILLIAM  SHAKS'PERE 

this  man,  rests  upon  no  tangible  proof, 
but  to  the  contrary  upon  strained  and  far- 
fetched conjecture,  merely. 


INDEX, 


Pages 

Alleyn  Edward 17,  18,   19,  42,   107 

Addenbroke  John    115,   116 

Aubury  John    141 

Blank    Verse    31 

Bame    Richard    7  8 

Burbages    18,    42 

Beaumont  Francis.  .122,  123,  142,  148,  150,  157,  169,  174 

Burns   Robert    .48 

Burton   Robert    53,    157 

Bruno    79 

Bodley   Sir   Thomas    94 

Betterton     103 

Bright    John    164 

Brown   Sir   Thomas    156 

Brown    Richard     16 

Bunyan  John    44,   45 

Brow^n  J.   M 54 

Camden  William 160 

Chapman   George 81,    93,    122,    136,    140,    141, 

142,  143,  144,  145,  146,  147,  154,  155,  163,  174,  175 
Chettle  Henry 35,   43,   49,   63,   68,   69,   70,  71,   74, 

75,   76,   77,   79,   80,   81,   82,   83,   84,   85,   86,   87,   89,   90,   91 

Collier   J.    P 25 

Cook   Dr.   James    101 

Coleridge   S.   T 47,    144,    145 

Cicero    50,   84 

Combe  WilUam    109,   110,   125 

Cromwell    Oliver     3 

Dryden   John    39,    148,    165,    172 

Drumrnond   Sir  William    39,    166,    167,    173,    176 

Dearborn     43 

Daniel   Samuel    145,   173 

Davis    Cushman    K 41 

Dowland    John    17 

Diggs    Leonard    128 

Dance-Scene    100,   111,   124,   129 

Dyce  A 114 

Davenant  Sir  William    135 

Donne • 174 

Dekker    143,   162,   174 


ii  INDEX 

Pages 

Drayton    150,    153,    174 

Elizabeth    Queen 53,    157 

Emerson   R.   W 114,    130 

Fletcher  John 43,   122,   142,   148,    150,   152,   157 

Fleay    , 70 

Ford   John    122 

Farmer    Dr 110 

Fuller    Thomas    159 

Garrick    David Ill 

Grosart   A 30 

Robert    Greene    

4,   5,   6,   8,   9,   10,   11,    13,   14,   16,   25,   26,   27,   28, 

29,  30,  31,  32,  33,  34,  35,  36,  37,  38,  40,  41,  43,  44,  45, 
46,  47,  48,  49,  50,  51,  52,  53,  55,  56,  57,  58,  59,  60,  61, 
62,  63,  64,  65,  66,  68,  69,  70,  71,  72,  73,  75,  76,  77,  79, 
80,   82,  83,   84,  85,   86,   87,   88,   89,   90,   121,   140,   150,   151 

Gifford   William    165 

Groats  Worth  of  Wit.  .6,   9,   61,  62,   65,   68,   76,   85,  87,  89 

Galileo     79 

Hathaway   Richard    102,    103 

Howell  James 168,  176 

Hall  Dr.  John    100,   111,   124,   129 

Hathaway  Agnes   or  Anne    103,    104,    106 

Herrick    45 

Henry  VI 30 

Henslowe  Diary 17,   19 

Henslowe  Philip. ..17,  19,  32,  42,  89,  93,  117,  118,  152,  156 

Hallam  Henry    114,   118,   130 

Heywood 24,    143 

Halliwell-Phillips     32,    15  6 

Harvey  Gabriel 18,  40,  47,  49,  50,  51,  52,  53,  62,  69 

Ingleby    Dr 37 

Jonson  Ben : 24,  39, 

59,  81,  90,  92,  93,  94,  122,  136,  137,  139,  140,  142, 
143  145,  148,  152,  153,  159,  160,  161,  162,  163,  164, 
165,    166,    167,    168,    169,    170,    171,    172,    173,     175,    176 

James   First    43,    147 

Jusserand    J.     J 60 

Jefferson    Thomas    7  9 

Kemp    William    11,    14,    15,    16     17,    18,    19, 

20,   21,   22,   23,   24,   25,   26,   27,   28,   29,   31,   32,   33,   35,   92 

Kyd 43,   151 

Keats   John 146 

Kind  Hearts  Dreams    35,   63,    68,   76,   91 

Lucy  Sir  Thomas    107,    113,   114 

Lincoln   Abraham 89 

Lodge  Thomas 34,  72,  73,  140,  152 

Lee  Sidney    133,    137,   151 


INDEX  iii 

Pages 

London     15,    20,     21,     105 

Lee    Miss    Jane     .150 

Lucrece     131,    138 

Lamb  Charles    146 

Lander  Walter   Savage    153 

Marlowe    Christopher 6,   11,   30,    31,  S5,   69,   70,   71, 

72,    73,   76,   77,   78,   79,    80,    81,   82,   83,    86,   144,   150,    151 

Milton   John    49,    122,    146,    153 

Mulcaster    Richard    101 

Miller    Joaquin    50 

Malone    9  4 

Mannering   Arthur    109,    110 

Middleton     174 

Massinger   Phillip 122 

Marston    John    24,    136,    162,    174 

Meres    Francis 138,    139,    140,    141,    155 

Nash  Thomas.  .  .  .  7,   11,  15,   18,   29,  30,   32,  35,   38,  45,  49, 
52,    62,    69,    70,    71,    72,    73,    83,    84,    85,    86,    87,    88,    140 

Napoleon     96 

Nicholson   Dr 172 

Norwich 20,  22,  62 

Overbury  Sir  Thomas    43 

Peele    George 

7,   11,  30,   35,  69,   70,   71,   72,   74,  75,  83,  86,   151 

Poe   Edgar   Allen    48 

Quiney   Richard    108,    111,    112 

Rathway  Richard 2  4 

Rosebery   Lord     .  .  .  •  • 9  6 

Rowe  N 103,    134,    135 

William  Shakspere  the  Stratfordian 

1,  2,   3,   4,   5,   6,  8,   9,   10,   11,   12,   13,   14,   15,   28 

29,  31,  32,  33,  34,  35,  36,  37,  41,  42,  45,  70,  71,  82, 
86,  87,  96,  97,  99,  100,  101,  102,  103,  104,  105,  106, 
107,  108,  109,  110,  111,  112,  113,  114,  115,  116,  117, 
118,  119,  120,  122,  123,  124,  125,  126,  127,  128,  129, 
130,  133,  134,  135,  136,  137,  138,  151,  152,  155,  156, 
158,    159,    160,    161,    162,    164,    165,    166,    170,    171,     177 

Shakespeare  the  Author  Poet    2,   31,   33,   37, 

39,  43,  55,  60,  70,  72,  90,  124,  130,  131,  132,  138,  140, 
142,  143,  144,  147,  148,  149,  150,  152,  153,  154,  155, 
158,     159,     164,     165,     166,     169,     170,     171,     172,     175 

Shakspere  John 96,  97,  98,  101 

Shakspere    Susana    ioO,    111 

Shakspere    Judith    100,    112 

Shakspere    Hamnet    •  • 108 

Shake-scene    5,    6,    8,    11,    12,    13,    14,    15,   16 

Shake-rags    16,    23 

Spencer   Edmund    144,    156,    157,    173 


iv  INDEX 

Pages 

Stratford-on-Avon    

1,   12,   41,   90,   99,   100,    101,   103,   104,    105,   107,' 108 

Sidney  Sir  Phillip    18,   144,   157 

Stevens  George 2,  114,  130 

S'winburn  A 47,    96,    146,    151 

Scott  Sir  Walter 5  9,  157 

Strojenko     Prof •  • 66 

Stratford   Bust 12  8,    131 

Spedding-   James    150 

Saunders    132 

Southampton  Earl  of...  132,  133,   134,   136,   137,  138,   149 

Tarlton   Richard    15,    114,    130 

Tyrwhitt    Thomas 9 

"The  Nine  Days  Wonder"    16,   21 

Twain   Mark    130 

Thompson   James    49 

Taft  William  H. 79 

Taylor    John 175 

Thorndike  A.  H 152 

Tolstoy  Leo    90 

Upstart    Crow    5,    9,    2  8,    82 

Venus  and  Adonis 32,   131,    138,    149 

Voltair 157 

Washington  George    3 

Wilson  Robert,  Senior 25,   26,   27 

White   Richard   Grant    116 

Wallace    Professor 119 

Waller    Edmund    145 

Wately  Anna    102 


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